Between Nuts and Bolts
by Basbon
Summary: Here is my 3. Story about Bolt. Please note that this story includes the Skulls. They are nothing you will find anywhere, because they are an idea of mine. If you are ok with a bit of shooting and killing here and there, you are good to go. Also, whole lots of shipping going on, so be aware of that too.
1. The mysterious ExoSkull

**A quick explanation before I start this. This story involves** ** _The Skulls_** **. They are an idea I had for quite a while and I have developed an indepht story for them. Their story is too long and spiked with too many details to be told, so you learn about them as I go. Don't worry about losing track of the situation though, as I will try to make it as clear as possible. If you still have questions, I made a series on DeviantArt about them, called „The Skulls Frontline stories" out of the perspective of a halfbot scout. I reccomend reading it, because I already explained some stuff there. Now, after all of this, here is the actual story:**

Bolts P.O.V.

I was laying on my bed for quite some time now. Not I really had to think about somethings, like Penny, Rhino, Mittens and how I wanted my life to progress. _Do I want to be a superdog? Or just a normal one? How can I even be a normal dog?_

I was ripped out of my thoughts by a scream from Mittens, then hysteric calls telling me to come outside. _Oh no, what is it this time?_ „I'm on my way!" _Hopefully she's alright..._ I headed downstairs and slammed into the closed door. For a second I saw stars, then I shook my head thinking: 'I really have to practise doors.'

Once outside, I saw the black cat and Rhino standing in the yard, looking up to the sky. „Bolt! Look!" - „What? Have you seen aliens?" - „See for yourself!" I turned my head up and tried to spot something.

And yes, I can't say how much that surprised me, there was an object in the sky. Flying. But not a jet, not a helicopter or airbus, nothing like that! It didn't even have fire coming out of exhausts! It was just... hovering? Now I could see some blue rings popping out off four pillars. Two on each side of the craft.

And it was coming down? „What is that?", Mittens asked in disbelieve. I was too impressed to reply. But now the thing got closer, and I started seeing its shape. Kinda like a jet, but it didn't have wings, or at least big wings, instead, it was holding itself up using these four engines.

„We have to go." - „Wha..." - „We need to go! NOW!", I yelled, grabbing the cat and the hamster and started to run. I looked over my shoulders to see the mysterious craft landing on the yard. „But Bolt! This is so cool! Can we say hello to these people?" - „Not the right time Rhino!"

We hid behind a corner and stared at the jet like thing. _What is it going to do? Anything at all? Is it just going to take off again?_ But then something happened. A windshield popped open with the sound of air streaming inside, then it folded to the right side.

I tried to get a better look at it, since my curiosity has won over my protective instinct. Then two arms grabbed the edge of it, and I could see a head, followed by the rest of the creatures body. It looked like a human, but... different!

Instead of having an arm made of flesh and bones and muscles, it had a robotic one! The same with its right leg, ear and... eye? „What is this thing?", Mittens asked again. „I really don't know. It looks human!" - „That's impossible! I have never seen a thing like that! And why does he have these strange body parts?"

„Ah, you guys are just waaaay too scared! Here! Watch and learn!" The rodent walked towards the creature. „RHINO! Come back!" - „No way! This is way too cool!" He ran over to it. I started to panic. „Should I run after him?" - „NO! I- I mean, no. This guy might not see Rhino, but you are too big!"

Then I heared a noise. It came from the creature! And it was... talking? It had a male voice, and looked over all like a man, but I wasn't sure. „OH GOD!" Mittens yelled. „What? What's happening?"

„He just pulled out a gun and is aiming it at Rhino!" I was shocked, but then my instincts took over and I sprinted towards him, pushing the hamster out off the way. The man was startled, but quickly recovered and started to laugh, then point his gun at me.

I was preparing to die, but instead, he just lifted his arms up. _What? What is he doing?_ He took a step back and shook his head, then pointed the gun at the grass beneath me. He signalised me that everything was ok, and shot. To my surprise though, it wasn't a bullet! It was a beam that scanned the grass!

He then lifted it up, directing the beam at me and scanning me. The man took another step backwards, after which his head twiched for a second and he said: „Now that's better, right?" _He speaks my language?_ „What did you do?", I asked him, knowing that I wouldn't get an answer back. But he surprised me once again as he responded: „I just scanned you over your language and DNA. Sorry if I scared you!"

„You understand me?" - „Not only that! I even speak your language now. Don't worry, I already know how to speak the one from the most intelligent species on this planet." - „B- but why are you here?" - „Because I we believe that you are in great danger!"

I was out of words. Suddenly Mittens came from the back and asked: „What do you mean, we are in great danger?" - „Look. Here is the background: A long time ago the Skulls landed on your planet. We discovered it during recon missions in sector 5F30, you are in sector 5F29. When we got here, we introduced ourselfes.

Due to the Skull codec, we are not allowed to attack a planet that hasn't given us reason to do so, or declined our peace declaration. In your case, you became a member of our peace program. That means we took over 15% of your planet, the desert, and gave you security over all space dangers there are."

My head felt like it was going to explode. „And who are you?", I asked. Maybe I heared his name somewhere. „My name is ExoSkull. Commander ExoSkull. The leader of the Skulls, some reffer to me as 'The Skull', because I was the first one. I made and formed our organisation, and took over..."

He snapped his left arm down for a hologram to appear. After tapping and swiping on it for a few seconds he continued: „2000 Planets with intelligent species on it, and a few hundred thousand terraformed ones. We are really the greatest force in the universe. Or at least the us known one."

„So you go around, taking over planets? But why?" The commander laughed a bit, then replied: „Because sometimes it's fun, sometimes it makes jobs, and most of the time you get more space for your people to live." - „You are basicly having wars everywhere in the universe and thats it." - „Well, yeah. BUT! We are not telling anyone to join the war, in fact, we are producing bots that do it for us!"

Before he could fill our minds with even more information, Mittens asked: „So what's that danger we are in?" He made a serious look and said: „The slimes."

„Wha-" - „What are these 'Slimes'?" - „We dicovered a high concentration of Tempamaturum on your planet. The exact material the slimes are made off. They can for into every shape and every color they want, just to attack from behind and kill everything in their way.

Now I was worried even more than before. „We need to evacuate this whole planet! Only for a short time, our special force will take care of the slimes, but we can't risk any of your lives."

„So what are we going to do then? And why did you come over here to us?" - „Here is why I chose you: As I said, we need to evacuate this planet. The thing is, noone would ever listen to a crazy cyborg guy with a huge army behind his back! But you! You are one of Americas, and with that the whole worlds biggest superstar! And you are a dog! People love dogs! They will listen to you and do what you say!"

We looked at each other. Mittens and I were really concerned, but Rhino was hyped. „I am SO in!", he said in excitement. I sighed. „Ok. I will do it. For Penny." - „For the rest of the world." - „And that." - „Alright! We just need to go to a news show and tell them to-"

The commander was cut off by an alarm in his left arm. „Wait a second please." He turned away and popped out the hologram. He didn't do a great job at hiding it though, as we could hear everything.

„Alright. What's it this time? - _Ok Dad. Remember how I told you about this outpost at grid 88.0? -_ Calm down. What planet are we talking about? - _Maximus._ \- Yeah, I think you said something about 88.0. - _Look dad, things just got worse._

 _I am sending the elite, but screw driver is still recovering from his last mission where he took a rocket to the face, and without him and his gatling gun we are screwed._ \- Name coincidence, right? Ok Echo. Do we have Rex on standby?

\- _Let me check... Yes._ \- Good. I am coming over. Send Rex and Rocket. If Drendor is free too, he should get the transformatron and get them there. - _Ok dad. See you._ "

He turned around again and looked us me in the eyes. „We have to go. Now. Pack your stuff, I can't leave you here." - „But what about saving the world?" - „Your world can wait! Just get inside the skullion and we are on our way!" - „I think you are talking about the ship. No. I can't leave Penny here by herself! Not again!"

„Ok. If you say so." He ran over to the house door and knocked. Or better said: He smashed the door with his right arm until Penny opened up. „What can I do for y-" She looked at him in horror, and stood silently while the commander said: „Look Penny. You don't know me, I don't know you. Your pets know me and I know them. I need to take them for a while. Here, take this in return."

He handed her a pistol. „I want this thing back when I bring your animals back. And don't fire in the house." - „Wait! You can't take Bolt with you!" For a moment no one made a sound. But then he tapped his right ear and a little thingy popped out. „This is a speech converter. High tech for your standards. Now, I want you, Penny, to take this and plug it in your ear."

I saw what he was trying to do, so I walked up to her and poked her leg with my nose to signalise her to do it. She waited and stared at the headset like gadget, then plugged it in. Immidiately I started to talk.

„Penny, can you hear me?" Her eyes started to fill with tears. „Yes! Yes I can!" I was so relieved. „Ok. Listen. This planet is in danger. So called 'Slimes' are here. And this guy needs me to tell the world to evacuate. I don't even know how, but I have faith in his idea. Please. I need to go. WE need to go. But you have to stay here. It's for your own safety." - „But Bolt, I don't want you to go!"

„And I don't want to leave you here. But this is something big. You have to understand." She looked at the commander again, then back to me and said: „Ok. But please take care of them, ok?"

„Oh don't worry! It's not like I am doing this for the first time! I am 250 years old!", ExoSkull replied. „I don't mean you! I was talking to Bolt!" - „Oh. If you say so. Now please give me the converter back and we are on our way."

She reached to her ear and pulled the thing out, then stroked through my fur and said: „Promise me to come back." I nodded and pressed my head against hers, then went over to the ship with the others. One last look back and I was in.

The commander closed the visor and started the engines, resulting in little vibrations on the seat we were on. „Ever flew?", he asked. Stupid question! Of course not! „No, I never had the priviledge to do so."

„Wow. You've been missing a lot of fun! Ok, so to reach our destination in time, we have to hyperjump. It won't hurt, but your atoms will be transfromed into data, then launched at over light speed. To prevent data from corrupting, please don't touch anyone else. You don't want to be superglued toghether, right?"

And with these reassuring words, that totally made me feel saver about this whole trip, we launched off to the sky. Let's just hope we come back in one piece...


	2. On board of the Titan

ExoSkulls P.O.V.

 _Grid 88.0. Why does it have to be 88.0? This is unbelievable! Not only am I forced to help 5F29, now I have to deal with maxians at grid 88.0!_ „Ok guys and gals! Here's the plan: We first fly over to the Titan, there I will pick up a few things, then we fly to the Crypton, where I dump all of these things, after that, I will reassure that grid 88.0 is stable and THEN we will save your planet!"

I noticed the three looking at each other, well, the hamster seemed happy with that idea, but the cat and Bolt... „Hey, that reminds me, I dont even know you! So! Who are you?" Bolt started speaking: „You apparently know me already. I am Bolt, and I am just here to help you with mankind."

The black cat seemed a bit scared, but tried to look strong. I knew this facial expression. I knew that she tried to fool me into thinking that she was ok, but she wasn't. Finally the ice broke. „My name is Mittens, and I was an ally cat once. Then Bolt came and saved me, and now I live with him in his owners house."

I chuckled for a second, then replied: „Wow! Bolt seems to be a pretty nobel guy!" - „He is! He is awesome!" I noticed the little brown hamster, and asked: „And who are you?" He made a heroic pose, and said: „My name is Rhino! And I am willing to do anything to save the humans!"

„Now that's the spirit!" - „Is there something I can help you with? OOH! What does this button do?" He leaned forward and pressed a little knob on the control panel. A metallic voice said through a speaker: _„Please select coordinates first."_ „What coordinates?" - „Hyperjump coordinates. Actually, I will do that right now!"

As always, I pressed the button next to Rhinos one, and a hologram popped out. I navigated through a quick screen, from _Select from database, concuerors, Titan_ to _Accept_ and pressed the other button.

The voice came back, this time saying: _„Hyperjump valid. Initiating hyperjump."_ „Oh this is going to be awesome!" - „Ha! I like this guy! I wish my grandson would be like you!" As usual, the vibrations got stronger as the warp engines extended out of the ship.

„ _Engaging hyperjump."_ „You have a grandson?", the white shepherd asked from the rear seat. I was a bit baffled by his question, I didn't really expect that, but I answered him anyways: „Yeah! Did I tell you I am 250 years old?" - „I think so." - „Well, actually 253 years, but I keep losing track of it."

„ _Executing hyperjump."_ „Alright! Don't touch each other now, we had this case once and I don't want to repeat the process!" And with that an array of light soaked in everything from the back to the front of the Skullion, then we were catapulted forwards.

Bolts P.O.V.

When we were put back together I instanly heared Mittens screaming in fear, and Rhino screaming in joy. I had never expierenced something like that before, it's like being ripped appart, but you don't feel it, and you get put back the moment you leave.

„Alright, you ok in there?", the commander asked. „Yes. Please. Tell me why we can't just save our world and THEN this grid 99 or something?" He lowered his voice, and said: „Look Bolt. I know this must be hard for you to understand, but I am in charge of not only 2 trillion scouts scattered around the universe, but I am also responsible for dealing with 4 trillion lifes of life forms. Scattered around the universe. Your problems might have a high priority to you, but not that much to me."

„But... you are going to help us right?" - „I might be known as the bad guy in so many places, but I never broke a promise. Never. Ever." I was relieved to hear that, but something told me to still watch out.

„What do you mean with being known as the bad guy?", Mittens asked. „Well, I take over planets! Their species might not see me as the great savior, but more as a threat!" - „Ok. There is something not right here! If you really have trillions of people behind your back, ready to attack, why do planets still want to fight you?"

That was a good question. The commander looked at us three for a second, then told us: „I guess they think that they can handle us!" After a short silence, he snapped out of his thoughts and pointed at a giant metal thing far away from us. „There! Can you see it? That is the Titan! The second largest ship we have!"

Everyone looked out of the windshield and ripped their eyes wide open. „Th- that thing is HUGE!", Rhino yelled in excitement. „Wait! There is a bigger ship than THAT?" - „Yep. The Crypton." - „Can we see it? Where is it? And what is THIS?" The little hamster was getting hyped more and more the more things he saw. „Is this the Crypton?" He pushed his nose against the glass, pointing at a ball of rocks. A huge ball of rocks.

„No Rhino, that is Maximus. The biggest planet in the us known universe. The crypton is on the other side of it." We approached the giant metal beast. A little door opened up, and the spacecraft landed on some rails. I felt a rough shake, followed by a clanking sound. We moved further down the rails, over to a platform, where a robot was standing.

The commander folded the windshield to the right and stood up, telling us to stay here in the process. When he jumped onto the platform, the robot moved his rifle to its left arm, turning it vertically and saluted ExoSkull with the word: _„Commander."_ ExoSkull made a waving salute back, and went to a tube.

Mittens, Rhino and me followed him, as he pulled a card out of his right arm, holding it against a scanner. „You can stay here for a second, it only takes half an hour until I am back." - „WHAT", Mittens and I yelled at the same time. „You can't just leave us here for half an hour!" - „I will hurry up, don't worry!"

A container flew through the tube and came to a stop at the exit. The commander went inside and pressed a few buttons, then over him a thing started to rotate really fast, filling itself with a blue surface. ExoSkull gave us a thumbs up, and the spinning thingy shot a wave of energy at the container, catapulting him down the tunnel.

„So... what are we going to do then?", I asked. „I don't know... hey! Where is Rhino?" The black cat was suddenly panicing again. I looked around myself, but then I spotted him on his way to the robot. „Over there! Rhino! Come back!"

But he didn't hear us. Or just didn't want to hear us. Instead, he ran over to the piece of metal and climbed ontop of it. Mittens and I looked us in the eyes for a second, then we headed towards him. When we got there, the little hamster sat on the robots gun and asked: „So who are you?" - _„Classified."_ \- „Ah, I see." He turned to us and said: „Look, I saw this once, here is how it's done!" He cleared his throat, then went: „Serial number!" - _„G-932-TI-C"_ \- „Oh my god this is so cool!"

„What does that even stand for?", Mittens asked in disbelieve. „Are these just random numbers and letters put together to make it sound better?" G-932-TI-C looked down at her, and said: _„Classified."_ \- „No no! You have to do it like this: Full name!" - _„Guardian 932 Titan Intel class C."_

I knew that this would go on for quite some time, but then I had another question: „How can you even understand us?" - _„Intigrated speech converter."_ Made sence. „Ok guys. This is not the right time for chatting with a robot, we need to find our way out of here and save the world!"

„But how? We are stuck here until that cyborg guy comes back!" - „Maybe there there is a spare spaceship somewhere that we can use!" - „Are you crazy Rhino?" I thought about that for a moment. „It might be our only chance out of here..."

 **Ok. This is the second chapter, and I have finally decided to give my chapters names! Jup, because this might be a longer story, names for chapters are better than just numbers. Shoutouts to Advina for being the first one to review my story, don't worry, I won't disappoint you. I am writing these stories from scratch, and add things as I go on, so I am equally surprised when something happens as you. And I can't imagine a dog, a cat and a hamster flying a cruiser...**


	3. Rescue with detours

Bolts P.O.V.

We searched the what seems to be a docking bay for a way out. It didn't take long until Mittens discovered something. „Look! A door!" - „I don't know... it seems locked!" - „There needs to be a way to open this up!" Just then I had an idea: „Hey, how about we get this robot guy to open it up for us!"

Mittens seemed a bit sceptical. „I don't think that he will help us in any way." - „Ah, you are just too scared to ask him! HEY ROBO GUY!" The Guardian tilted his head to the side. „Could you open this up for us?" - _„Safety Class."_ \- „What does he mean?" - „I have no idea. Oh, is A better than B?" - „I guess so..."

I saw this as the perfect way of getting him to do stuff for us, and said: „Class A!" - _„Please confirm."_ \- „Uhm... we came in with the commander, doesn't this make us a high safety class?" The guardian seemed like it was processing something, then he came over and opened the door for us.

„Wow, it worked!" - „No time for celebrating! We need to find a spacecraft!" We three nodded and searched the room we were now in for a... „A ship!" Rhino was suddenly really excited. „Over there! Look!" And really, on the other side of the room, there was something that looked similar to this 'Skullion' thingy.

The area was empty. Not a single robot or person to be seen. It could have been so great for us, but what ruined it was that the visor was closed, and we couldn't find any keys. „So... what do we do now? Wait for ExoSkull to come back?"

„No way. I am not waiting for anything, I will save my Penny and save my world!" - „But we can't just knock on the lid until it opens! Maybe we should really just-" Mittens didn't get to finish her sentence, as Rhino started shouting: „GUYS! I GOT KEYS!"

The little furball was full of energy, and shot across the room with a black knob on his back. „Look! I think this is what we need!" - „Well what a coincidence... How do you think this works?" Rhino stared at the metal box and tried figuring it out. „Maybe, if I press... that?"

The lights of the spacecraft went on. „Ok, now... this one!" And for real, the visor folded to the right! It was open! „Wow. You really did it... we have no more time to waste!", I said, jumping into the ship.

„This can't be that hard, right?" Well... I was wrong. I was terribly wrong. „Mittens, you should take over this switch, Rhino you are pressing the buttons and I am going to steer!" - „I can see this going south already..."

Rhino plugged the key into its designated crack and turned it around. The generator howled loudly, then went to a monotone purring. „Ok. How do we do this now?" No one had an answer to it, but Rhino suddenly said: „Here! Here stands _Drive_ on the switch!" I thought it was worth a try, so I moved the toggle with my paw, just to hear the generator die.

„Well, that went well..." - „Let's try something else! See! Help mode!" The little hamster pointed at another button near the steering wheel. Well, not a wheel, more three sticks mashed together. He turned the generator back on and pressed _Help mode._

Suddenly a knob started blinking. Maybe this is how it goes... Rhino took care of that, and we heared the engines starting up. After that, another one started blinking, so we turned followed the instructions again, and in the mirror I could see the blue energy rings filling out the spinning engines.

And then the final step came, as an arrow pointed from 'Steady' to 'Drive'. I moved it with my paw again, and we felt ourselfes being pushed into the seats, as the ship was following the tracks, leading to an exit that opened up for us.

Right before we left I heared the clanking metal sound again, then we were free. But our joy only held a few seconds, until we realized that we were floating in the ship! But that wasn't the case in ExoSkulls one, and there were no seatbelts either!

„ _Warning. Artificial gravity not activated."_ Oh yeah. Sure. We noticed. „Guys! Search for a button that says: 'Artificial gravity'!" - „Ha ha haa! This is so awesome!" - „Not the right time Rhino!" - „I can flaaaay!"

Well, at least he was having fun... „Found it!", Mittens called, and ungracefully slipped away in an effort to press it. _„Warning. Artificial gravity not activated."_ , the computer voice told us again. „Well, could you please activate it for us?"

„ _Affirmative."_ Wow. I didn't expect that. And I also didn't expect being pulled to the ground so quickly, when I avoided smashing my head on the control panel by a centimeter. „Now what?", the cat asked. „To be honest, I didn't even think we could get that far..."

„Hey guys! Guys! If we came here with that super jump thing, we should get back doing the same, right?" Rhinos suggestion sounded like a good plan, but again, it was canceled by technology. „Hey ship! Can you take us to... uhm... 5F30?" - „5F29, Bolt." - „Sure. 5F29."

„ _Negative. This ship is not equipped with a hyper engine."_ Oh great. Now we are stuck on a spacecraft that we can't steer, in deep space, without the possibility of getting back home. „Uhm, what can we do about this?" - „We should find another ship that is able to jump!" - „But where?"

We thought for a moment, then Rhino had another idea: „Maybe on this Maximus planet! If there are really so many Skulls down there, there should be at least one ship that can do this super jump!" - „It's hyperjump, Rhino." - „I think super jump sounds better..."

„So, should we try getting one on the maximus thing?" We all nodded, and with that it was a closed case. We were going to find a spaceship with this special engine on a strange planet. Let's hope we can do it in time...

 **So they are doing it? Well, fine with me, I mean, Exo is just getting stuff, checking on a front, and that's it, I really don't see why they would hurry that much... But ok, as I said, I am writing this out of ideas I get while writing, so anything they suddenly decide to do, I am also surprised about. Thats about it from me, shoutouts to Advina again, feel free to review me, I am open for constructive critisim, but stay fair to me. Goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	4. Crashes and unwanted surprises

**Now, before we get into this chapter, I recieved a question about some stuff regarding Maximus, you know, the gravity and atmospheric conditions... Of course I think I should make some things clear. So here is a little background before the actual story continues:**

A brief summary of Maximus.

If you want to know about Maximus, you have to turn the pages back quite far. Originally, the giant piece of rock was only the home to plants, and very few, not intelligent species. The Maxians were actually the people who wanted to take that thing over, because from their home planet, this thing was blocking the view.

It is surrounded by 4 suns, making it a day night cycle of around 40 hours per day. Of course, due to its gravity, you would be getting pulled to the ground, with 40 Gs of pressure. You don't want 40 Gs.

Even the Maxians knew that, so they invented a mashine called the 'Artificial Anti-Gravity Generator' or short 'AAGG'. The prime focus of both Maxians and Skulls, yet they are rivals at normal conditions, is to keep the AAGG alive, or else nothing would be standing there anymore.

For the atmosphere, yes, Maxians breath something else than oxygen, but it somehow managed to be in a good enough concentration for humans to not die, yet the oxygen levels are lower compared to the earth, which makes breathing for untrained lungs a bit difficult at the start.

 **So this was the history of Maximus, and now, after all of this explaining, here is the real story:**

Bolts P.O.V.

There was nothing more important than to get back home for me. „Mittens, can't you go faster?" I never really had any troubles with things taking long, in fact, I was always very patient, but this time...

„I'm sorry Bolt, but I have no idea how to use this thing!" She stared at the switch for a long time, then, moved the dongle from 'Drive' to 'FastDrive'. The engines stopped hammering blue orbs of energy into space, and instead of single rings, a bigger, consistant ring shot out of them.

„This is faster, right?" A quick look at the tempometer and I said: „Yep. From 100 to 250 km/h." Good. We were a bit quicker now. Not good enough. „Isn't there another stage?" Mittens looked at the switch again and said: „You're right! There still is... uhm... Warp drive?"

„Ok, maybe we should-" I nearly spoke to an end, when we heared a voice through a radio scaring us into jumping. _„Unidentified Cruiser, this is Titan docking center. Please confirm."_ We are in trouble. „Rhino, you talk. You seem to know this stuff."

The hamster bounced up and down and giggled, then took what seemed to be a microphone and pressed a button next to it. A light next to the speakers turned on and Rhino pulled out his most heroic voice he could find.

„This is captain Rhino speaking! I have confirmed your call!" - _„Captain Rhino, you are not listed in our dismiss folder. You have no permission to fly."_ \- „Don't worry! We know what we're doing!" - _„Sir, you had no right to take this cruiser off. Please return to the Titan immidiately."_

„I cannot do that! I am in a rescue mission!" - _„Sir, if you don't follow our instructions, we will send takedown hunters after you."_ Uh oh. Bad news. I leaned over to Mittens and whispered: „Do you think we can get home safely without being blown up?" - „I really don't think so..."

„Well then you should make them ready, because we are not flying an INCH off our course!" The radio clicked and we never heard the voice again. For two minutes of steady flight we asked ourselfes if they would really shoot us down, and after another minute we have given up all our concerns of that actually happenig.

But then Mittens spotted something in the mirror... „THE HUNTERS!" Oh god... „What? Where?" - „They are right behind us!" - _„Unidentified cruiser. This is your last chance of surrender!"_ \- „What do we do now?"

Mittens and I paniced, then tried switching the dongle to 'WarpDrive' at the same time. When our paws touched we looked each other in the eyes, and the time seemed to have stopped. But then Rhino pulled us out of each others gaze as he screamed: „JUST SWITCH TO WARP DRIVE ALREADY!"

I let go of her paw, and she used it to move the switch. As another generator started humming, we both blushed a bit, then orange lightning shot out of another pair of engines on the back. We really lost them! We were faster than them!

Not for too long though, because not only did they warp behind us too, but they also started firing at us. And if that wasn't bad enough, Maximus was getting closer too, and I could only see us crashing into the rock surface...

Just a few kilometers from the planets atmosphere away, the hunter started pulling back. Maybe they weren't allowed to come close to Maximus. „PULL THIS THING UUUUUP!", Rhino yelled, and Mittens moved the knob back to 'Steady'. The engines died. In just a matter of seconds, her paw slipped away from the control panel, hitting the switch again, and turning on 'Hover'.

We heared a mechanical sound as the four side engines turned downwards, facing the ground, and started shooting orbs again. Meanwhile the cruiser started catching fire by entering the atmosphere. To our surprise, we survived that, but sadly, the artificial gravity generator did not.

When it broke, we were pushed towards the top of the ship, with Mittens laying on top of my arm. Well, technicly under my arm, but we were upside down. I managed to grab the laughing and giggling hamster too, but for a moment, I just enjoyed the black cat resting on my arm.

Suddenly the ship managed to stabelize itself again, and we fell down. Now we were hovering over the ground. A quick look outside told us, that this is definately worse than being chased by takedown hunters. We were right over a battlefield.

„This is not good. At all." The whole cruiser started shaking as we were catapulted backwards. The alarm went on, and the cockpit started blinking and honking. Then a last crash and I lost track of the world surrounding me, as I faded into darkness.

I woke up on a bed next to Mittens and Rhino. For a second I thought it was just a dream, and in reality I was fine, but then a robot bent over me. But it looked strange, not like the other one we've seen so far, but more like a thicker version.

And it also didn't speak in a monotone voice, sure, the metallic sound was still there, but at least it used normal language and different tones. _„So you are the ones that stole the cruiser? I thought you were an outlaw, but you are just animals..."_

I found my speech again and told him: „We have no time to chat! We need to get back home!" - _„Woah there buddy! You are heavily wounded! Don't worry, a medic is on his way."_ Heavily wounded? I don't feel like I am heav- **pain** – Oh god I am...

„ _Lay flat, the doctor is almost here..."_ Suddenly the door opened up, and a ball with spider legs came walking in. It folded away its upped half, and a few arms and instruments came out. There was the monotone voice again: _„Please hold still. This will not hurt."_

Yeah. The vet says that too all the time, and it doesn't help at all when getting syringed. But this time it actually didn't hurt! Instead, two spinning things were firing some sort of electricity through my body, and I couldn't feel it anymore!

While all I was wondering how all of this was possible, I looked down at my stomach to see that the spider bot was lasering, beaming, cutting, hammering and so much more with its gadgets, that I asked myself how I am not dead already.

And as sudden as it started, it stopped again, and repeated the same process with the cat and the hamster. When it was done, the doctor just walked out of the door again, leaving us four together in the room.

„ _So look. I see that you are lost here. But this is just an outpost. Not even a defense point, just an outpost. Choppers don't land here, they just drop off halfbots like me once in a while without ever touching the ground."_

„What do you mean?" - _„I mean, you can't get away from here, unless you get to the next control point."_ \- „Where even are we right now?" Maybe this will help us. If we know where we are, then we should have a few problems less. What I didn't want to hear at all, was what he said next: _„This is grid 88.1"_.

 **Ok, so I know I am making these chapters kinda short, but I think this lenght is fitting for the fast story style I am trying to accomplish. Also: Out of all the places they could have landed on, they came down on 88.1. Well that's really a coincidence right now...**


	5. A change in plans

**Quick disclaimer before this starts, this part includes a lot of changes in the point of view, so read carfully if you don't want to get confused.**

Rhinos P.O.V.

You could feel the pressure that my team and I went through, just by looking at us. Mittens sat in a corner shaking, Bolt was trying to calm her down, and I talked to the halfbot. „So we are in a battle zone right now?" - _„That is correct. You three have landed at the worst time at the worst location."_ \- „And you say that there is no way of picking us up?"

„ _As I said before, choppers don't land here. It's too dangerous for them to fly through this parameter."_ \- „But are we really trapped here? Is there no way of getting out?" - _„Well, there is, but it's really idiotic to do that."_ \- „What would you reccomend?"

He looked at me, tilting his head to the side and proceeded: _„You could go to the nearest control point. There is one in grid 87.5, but going outside of the outposts walls is like suicide."_ \- „I see... can I take a look outside? I want to know the threat!" - _„Are... are you sure? You don't seem like someone to be on the front, more like... a hamster."_ \- „Just trust me, I know where my limit is!" That was a lie, I know, but I really wanted to see some action.

Mittens P.O.V.

I stared at the white wall with my back to the bed I was just laying in. There was no chance of ever getting back. Fighting outside of the door, no food, no water, no mercy. Just any second there would be a shooting inside of this room and we would all die.

I was in the middle of processing these thoughts, when I felt Bolts paw on my back. „Hey Mittens..." I looked up in his eyes, and immidiately my stress seemed to have gone. Mostly. I didn't get a word over my lips and instead watched as he sat down next to me facing at the wall too.

„You are really worried, right?" I still wasn't able to talk. Something about the white dog being so close to me was comfortable and abnormal at the same time. „Me too, you know... But I still haven't lost faith in ExoSkull."

When I got my speech back, I asked: „Do you think you will ever see Penny again?" Immidiately after that I was cursing myself for doing so. I landed a direct hit at his heart and propably hurt him more than I helped.

„I... I don't know... Maybe if a miracle comes stepping through that doorway with open arms, shouting 'Here I am, your ticket to saving the world', we might have a chance of getting back." - „Bolt, I'm sorry, that was ruthless of me, I was just... I wanted to talk to you and-"

„It's ok. That was a reasonable question. We are just all tired and stressed." Without me realizing what I was doing, I moved closer to Bolt and leaned on his side. He seemed a bit confused about it at first, but then just smiled and sat there.

Rhinos P.O.V.

The noise outside was unbearable at first, but I managed to get used to it quite fast. The here was grassy, with moss patches here and there. What caught my attention at first was the giant wall surrounding the building I just came from.

On the inside of this wall, a walkway was built up above the ground give soldiers the opportunity of shooting over it. Some gatling guns were mounted on some points too, with robots standing behind them and unleashing fire against their enemies.

They were all shouting random stuff across the field, like 'Cover me' 'Out of ammo' 'Rocket' or 'Duck down'. I jumped down from the halfbots hand and ran to the wall. No one noticed me, at least I think so, and I found a tiny gap between two metal sheets, just big enough for me to look through.

What I saw was better, more realistic, and in some ways more terrifying than watching the magic box. My ears felt like they would explode, standing so close to one of the gatling guns, and when I looked up to the guy firing it, I could swear he had some sort of ear protection.

Just next to the outpost there was a forest, giving perfect cover for these Maxian people, who were not as armored as the Skulls robots or halfbots. My mind was blown when I realized what situation the Maxians were in, and even more, what major advantage the Skulls had!

But then I noticed something else. Between all of the guns and robots I saw one that did not look like the other ones. This thing was round, had thicker legs, had a bronce red body, and two mashine guns for arms.

It was the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. And to my surprise, it came towards me! _„Good morning, scout. I need to talk to you for a moment please."_ The halfbot that was holding me and the other robot got inside of the building again, and I really wanted to look at it a bit more, so I followed them.

Bolts P.O.V.

Having Mittens so close to me made me feel a lot better. Maybe it was just her warmth, but there was something else too, a feeling that I didn't know to this point. It's like a butterfly in my chest that wanders to the top of my neck and back down again...

Just me, the wall and the black cat, nothing happened for quite some time, yet so much was going on. „I am scared Bolt...", she finally said, breaking the silence between us. I really didn't know how to respond to that, so I tried comforting her. „Don't worry, I will find a way to get us out of here."

„Do you think we should try getting our own ship, or meet up with ExoSkull again?" These are some hard decitions... one step in the wrong direction and we would all be dead... „I'm still thinking of our own cruiser. We would be free to go anywhere."

„You're right. Just imagine us finding the commander again, being about to rescue our planet, and then he has to go elsewhere like last time..." - „Yeah, as he said, our problems are not as big as his." It looked like Mittens was about to say something, but she was cut off by the door opening.

„ _Ok Rex, sir, you should find everything you need right here."_ A big ball of steel on two legs walked into the room, spinning up his guns, then letting them rest again. I really didn't like it. At all. It kinda scared me. I also didn't like that it made Mittens jump out of my arm.

„Guys! Guys! Guess what!" - „Whoah there Rhino, calm down! What is it?" - „This robot is going to grid 88.0!" I didn't know what the great news about that was, but Mittens seemed to have understood. „Do you think we should follow him, Bolt?"

„Why would we do that? This is a war zone out there, going out there is dangerous!" - „But we can maybe find the commander there!" Now it clicked in my head. „But is he there yet and already gone or does he still fly around in space?"

The ball of metal didn't realize that the question was ment for him, so I said: „Rex? Is commander ExoSkull already at the outpost?" It looked over at me from the other side of the room, where he searched for something.

„ _I don't think so. But I am supposed to meet up with him there."_ I took all the courage, will power and protection instincts that I had and asked: „Would you mind if we go with you?" It was silent for a short time, then replied: _„If you want to, you can. But you have to keep up with my paste, and try not to die. Come to the western gate in two minutes, I won't be waiting for you."_

 **New plan, I see... Let's hope that it goes better for them than the old one. I don't have that much to say this time, so thanks Advina for reading and (hopefully) liking my story, goodbye und schönen Abend.**


	6. Outside of safety

**Hey there! Missed me? Yeah, I missed writing too. But, you know, a lot of real life came between me and this story, programming, learning for my drivers license, you name them. But hey! I am back!**

Bolts P.O.V.

I know what it was, but something about Rex scared me. Maybe because he only had guns for hands, or because he looked like a red cannon ball with only a tube for a head and a light next to a little camera on it.

But he was our only chance of meeting ExoSkull again, so we had to follow him. When we went outside, the noise of gunfire hit me with a deafening volume. As soon as the door opened, Mittens hid behind me, covering her ears with her paws.

Rhino didn't seem to care too much, he just pointed left and shouted: „This way!" I took a step forward, but immidiately felt the black cat falling over. She apparently leaned on my leg, although I didn't feel it at first.

I turned around, moved closer and said: „We need to go!" But she just shook her head. Maybe she was afraid of the loud noises and that's why she didn't want to come, or she just didn't want to leave savety here.

Eitherway, I couldn't just leave her there, so I grabbed her and carefully placed her ontop of my back. „If this is the only way, I can carry you! But we need to go right now!" She didn't even try to argue.

Rhino also thought it would be a great idea to saddle up, and jumped on my head, where he made sure he wouldn't fall by holding onto my hair. „HEYA! FORWARD!" - „Rhino, I am not a horse." - „Ok... Forward! Please." He couldn't help but laugh over his creativity, and decided to give him what he wanted.

As we arrived at the gate, Rex was already there and about to leave. „Rex! Wait!" The metal ball turned around, and said: _„Oh! You're here! Well, we are good to go."_ Just as he was about to tell the guy inside of a little room to open up the gate, he got interrupted by another, rather thick robot.

„ _REX! HOLD ON A SECOND!"_ , it called, and we noticed the normal tone, that the other half bot used, yet it had a mechanical sound to it. _„General? What do you need?"_ \- _„Rex, I found some volunteers for you! 4! 5! GET OVER HERE!"_

Two robots, looking like the one from earlier walked up to him and stood still. _„Ok, I will take them. But I want a few bots too, just in case."_ The general nodded and waved another five soldiers over, looking like the guardian. So far so good. At least we weren't completely alone with this thing now.

„ _AND YOU TWO! DO WHAT REX SAYS, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?"_ \- _„Yes, sir, general Heartbeat, sir!"_ Heartbeat. What an odd name... Apparently Rhino thought the same thing and asked: „Why are you called Heartbeat? Are you in love with someone?"

The two halfbots looked over to him, and I could swear that I saw them shocked even through their helmets. And as I expected, the general wasn't pleased about the question. _„WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? DID YOU JUST QUESTION MY NAME?"_

„I kinda did, yes." I tried giving Rhino signs that he might have overstepped, but he just kept going on. _„DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO?"_ \- „A general, I guess..." - _„THE general! I was the first one ever! The first halfbot ever! That's why my name is heartbeat!"_

„S- shouldn't we go now?" Even Rex seemed like he knew where this was going. _„Yup. Open up. Goodbye Hearbeat, don't get shot!"_ \- _„Pah! I am not the one who had to get his leg stiched up because of a rocket!"_ He looked over to one of the two halfbots, and then walked away, pulling out his giant gun.

As the gate opened, Rex turned to us again and said: _„Ok, you stay here until I give you a clear sign to come."_ We nodded and watched as he walked outside of the walls. The light on his head changed to red, and with a screwing motion he retracted it into his body.

Rhino was pumped again. He fired at the Maxians, then opened up his shoulders, where two cases folded out. I was just about to ask what they were for, but then he shot two rockets out of them. With all that action going on in front of him, the hamster turned into a giggling mess on my head.

The five bots started shooting too, so did the two halfbots, but they were a lot more careful. Eventually, when the bullets started getting less, Rex waved us over to him. „THAT'S THE SIGN! HAHAAAA!"

Rhino preteneded that the bundles of hair he had in his hands were leashes, and snapped them up and down while shouting: „HEYA! FORWARD! INTO BATTLE!" Actually, it was quite adorable, but the whole 'We are getting shot at' situation ruined it.

I ran as fast as I could with Mittens on my back, still covering her ears, and Rhino on my head, still pretending to be a cowboy. _„Over here!"_ I heared the voice from one of the halfbots hiding behind a few metal bars that were stomped into the ground.

I changed my direction, and jumped behind cover. „Thanks for the advise!" - _„No problem! What are you doing here anyways?"_ \- „I need to find commander ExoSkull! He will take us home and save our planet!"

„ _Are you sure? You don't seem like people to be on the frontlines!"_ \- „Yeah... well we stole a cruiser from the titan and landed here..." - _„Wow! You stole a cruiser? That's a serious crime!"_ I was about to tell him that I just wanted to save Penny, but then he got up and yelled: _„OK! NO TIME TO CHAT! WATCH OUT!"_

He picked me up, yes, he really picked me up, with Rhino and Mittens on me, ran over to Rex and into the nearest hole, where he let go of me again. _„Sorry, but we had to move up!"_ I felt kinda small at this moment... I really wasn't used to being carried, and I didn't like it at all. It's like I was too little to defend myself, so someone else had to do it.

The positive thing was, that the noise started to decrease, the further we got away from the defence point, so Mittens could stop covering her ears, and start holding me. „Please, don't you ever go away out here, ok?"

I nodded and blushed a bit, when she started moving her paw along my sides. „Oh don't worry, I would never leave you!" - _„Guys, this is not the right time for romances. We still have a lot of distance to go!"_

Now we both blushed, and looked on the ground. _„Oh, by the ways, you can call me 'four."_ \- „Let me guess. You are the fourth halfbot ever?" Four started laughing. _„No, but that would be amazing! I am the fourth scout in my troup! My real name is Ronny. But please, call me 'four'."_

„So let me guess again. The other one is 'five'?" - _„Yep. Oh god, stay down!"_ He stood up and pointed his gun foreward, then pulled the trigger. The sound of the rifle made Rhino excited. His little body must have been flooded with adrenaline, and to be honest, mine was too.

After he fired a few magazines empty, four crouched back down and said: _„Ok. Let's go!"_ He jumped out of the hole and ran to a couple of trees. „Hold on Mittens! This might be a bumpy ride!" I felt her squeezing my body, and jumped out too.

Meanwhile Rex and the bots casually walked along the frontline, taking fire, dealing damage, and slowly coming over to our position. I saw how he retracted and extended the cases for the rockets a lot, always with new ammo inside.

„There is something not right about that! How do so many rockets fit in his body?" - _„Teleportation. We can only do that with objects, but our scientists are looking for a way of teleporting lifeforms too. Look!"_

He pointed at a magazine on what seemed like a belt, and when he pulled it out of its holder, a few moments later a new one appeared. „Whoa... that is amazing..." - _„It only really works over short distances, so we put up a teleportation center every couple of grids, where ammo gets delivered to, and we can use it from there."_

At this point Rex had cought up to us. _„Good job at keeping these three alive, four. Do you have a medkid on you?"_ Four checked his armor, then replied: _„No sir."_ \- _„Alright. Five, you are responsible for them now."_

„ _Well, seems like I have to leave you here... you do remind me of animals though... what planet are you from?"_ Mittens lifted her head up and said: „I think it was... uhm... 5F29?" - _„WHAT? But- But- But... wow, your planet is in the news lately! The first time we have discovered Slimes in 140 years!"_

„Yup, that's why we need to go back and save it!" - _„Well good luck with that... But you aren't the most intelligent lifeform on your planet! I know, I saw them!"_ I think he meant the humans with 'Most intelligent'... I am not sure about that sometimes...

„No, I am a dog, she is a cat, and he is a hamster.", I explained while pointing at Mittens and Rhino. _„Gnaw... You look just like my dog back on 235..."_ \- „You have dogs too?" - _„Seems like it... I thought we were the only ones too..."_

„ _FOUR! Come here already!"_ \- _„Yes sir, Rex, sir! Don't worry, I will stay close!"_ With that, he stroked through my fur, then ran over to Rex. Did he just... pet me? That's odd... But no time for thinking, we had to move again. This time with five by our side. And it would be a loooong trip...

 **Ok, so the first steps in the right direction are being made. Let's hope it works out for them. Huge thanks to Advina for reading and reviewing my story, you do a great job keeping me motivated! As for right now, don't expect another chapter in the next couple of days, I will write whenever I can, but I have some real life too... Welp, goodbye und schönen Abend!**


	7. Feelings in developement

Mittens P.O.V.

I know it's strange, but I felt like falling asleep on Bolts back. Even though we were in the middle of nowhere, with some crazed killing mashines and only a vague direction to safety, I had to force myself to keep my eyes open.

The white dogs fur was just too cozy not to sleep on him. Actually, after a while not even the gun noises did a good job in keeping me awake, so I held him, dug my head in the back of his neck and started dozing away.

You could think that after all of this action I would have a nightmare, or at least a very rough dream, but to my surprise it was one of the nicest dreams I ever had! Bolt and I were alone on a wide open field that lead to a forest, just like the terrain we were at in the real world.

But in my dream, the only actors were me and him, and we were not surrounded by aliens and robots fighting each other. We were walking towards the forest and had a conversation about totally random things, like 'Nice weather', 'How did you sleep yesterday?' or 'Do you want to play fetch?'

The situation reminded me of nothing more than a normal day with Bolt, but this time something was different. Instead of closing myself and not letting anyone read my feelings, I was totally open to him! But why? Why did I tell him so much about me, and why did he tell me so much about him?

Not only that, but whenever I told him something really deep that meant a lot to me, he would just listen and completely understand my point! When we finally reached the trees, we sat under one of them and looked at the sunset.

Weird, it was still noon just a second ago! But I didn't question it, instead, we just sat there and held each other. Wait... what? Why were we so close all over sudden? Why did he hug me? Why did I like it so much? What was that feeling? And why...

I was ripped out of my dream when I heared an explosion not far away from me. My head snapped up just to see a cloud of dust rain down behind us. _„DOG! COME HERE!"_ One of the halfbots voices! Were we targeted now?

„ _OVER HERE! QUICK!"_ Just when Bolt jumped down in another hole, a second explosion came, this time so close that I head to cover my ears to get rid of the ringing in them. „Oh hey Mittens, you're awake!"

Did he know? Did he know that I was sleeping? And most of all, did he know that I was dreaming of him? „Uhm... yeah, how long have I been away?" - „I really don't know... maybe an hour?" Oh my... I slept an hour on Bolts back... but that also meant that we have walked a good distance to this grid 88.0 outpost!

„How long do we have to go?" - „Hm, good question. Hey five, how long is the rest of the walk?" The halfbot put his gun down and snapped his arm like ExoSkull did back on earth, and a hologram came out.

„You have this thing too?", Bolt asked. _„Yup. It's called 'Comlink' and it is already built in the armor of every bot or halfbot."_ Five pressed a few buttons, then opened up a map, read something and said: _„We walked for 20 minutes. If we keep this paste we should arrive at 88.0 in another 40 minutes."_

Wow. So I didn't sleep for an hour at all... But at least we were close to the middle of the walk. „Well, did I miss something?" Rhino turned around and with all the energy pumped into his little body he spewed out: „Not much, just THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER!"

Bolt chuckled and corrected: „As long as you think that a giant metal ball, armed to its non existing teeth, shooting bullets and rockets at aliens is awesome..." - „I think it is..."

I didn't notice that we were going again, or that anyone spoke anything after the 'As long as' part, I was too busy melting away over the little chuckle that Bolt did... It sounded kinda cute... Wait! Cute? Why am I thinking like this? I shouldn't!

But what did get my attention was Rhino asking: „Hey Mittens, don't you want to walk on your own?" My heart started racing, my thoughts overlapped and stumbled each other, and when I realized that every answer I give now could be taken wrong, my mouth was already over saying 'No'.

But I wasn't the only one who instanly responded! Bolt and I yelled 'No' at the same time, and we both blushed heavily. The hamster didn't seem to notice though, and just shrugged. Just when I was about to lay down again five called: _„Guys! Watch out!"_

With a big leap he jumped towards us and threw us away from a bullet rain that came from the forest. All I heared was the warning, then the clanking of him hitting the ground with us being pushed away, and then the sound of metal punching against metal, as he was the target now.

But he managed to stand up and get behind cover, pressing his hands against his body from head to the feet, to make sure that everything was still on. I thought we were out of danger, but I was wrong. I was thrown off of Bolts back, and when I stood up to get to him again, he was laying on the ground, holding his leg with his paws.

„Bolt, are you ok?" What I got as a response was an expression of pain on his face. „Bolt? BOLT!" He was injured! A bullet hit him! „FIVE! FIVE COME HERE! HELP!" The halfbot packed his gun back in the holder and ran over to us.

„ _Oh man... that is not good... Yeah, you've been hit... Wait a second!"_ He started pulling a capsule out of his chest and rotated the halfes in opposite directions. After that, the ball opened and a beeping sound played, indicating that it was usable now.

„ _Hold it dog, let's see what I can do..."_ He grabbed Bolts leg and held the halfes against it, but the white dog pulled it away, letting out a quick scream of pain. _„Ok, I know that it hurts right now, but I need to do this! I am not sure if the bullet hit a serious point, like a vain or a bone, but we have to at least seal the wound until we're at the nearest medi-center!"_

He grabbed the leg again, resulting in another sqeak, the he held the capsule against it and pressed a button. Immidiately a beam casted arround the wound, then it dissappeared. The beeping was there again.

„ _Oh god, it's worse than I thought... the bullet broke your bone! This pack is only for smaller treatments, but I guess it can take on a broken bone too..."_ While another beam came out, this time a red one, Bolts face changed from pain to unbearable pain.

It hurt me seeing him that way propably more than it hurt him standing through... He punched the ground, in an effort of making it better, but it didn't seem like it helped in any way. I couldn't stand him suffering, so I went over to his other paw and held it.

I was instanly grabbed and pulled towards his chest, then squeezed and hugged, and I am pretty sure that if the capsule would have beamed him for a little longer, they would have had to fix my bones aswell.

„ _Ok dog, your leg is partially fixed. The bullet is outside and the broken stuff is put back together. But you shouldn't walk in the next ten minutes, the artificial cells need some time to take their places."_

„Th- thanks Five..." - „How do you feel?" - „Ugh... Like a pancake..." - „Well you meet it on sweetness levels!" Just as these words left my mouth I immidiately covered it with my paws and blushed. And he did too.

„Uhm thanks, I guess..." - _„Hey cat! You stay here with him, I go find the hamster!"_ Rhino! He was gone! „Ok... I will just stay here and protect him..." - _„Good luck! You two seem to get by just fine!"_ And as we blushed even more, the halfbot walked away to look for Rhino.

 **Yes, I found time to write again, it surprised me too! Well, we are slowly starting to see something, I guess. Special thanks to Advina! Don't worry, this story is far from over! Almost half the way is done, but a broken leg can be a showstopper. I mean, Rex said that they should keep up to his paste, right? Anyhow, thats so far from me, goodbye und schönen Abend!**


	8. The itch

Bolts P.O.V.

There was this really awkward silence between Mittens and me after Five had left. No one knew what to say, I just stared at my leg, where my fur seemed to move. If she said anything I would have taken the opportunity to talk, but I really didn't want to start a conversation myself.

The wound started itching a bit, and it got clearer and clearer that I needed some sort of distraction. I took all courage I had and said: „Uhm... so how do you feel? Are you ok?" The black cat seemed to be relieved that I broke the silence.

„Yeah, everything is fine. But I am worried about you..." - „R- Really? You really do?" - „You just took a bullet... I am so sorry!" Now I felt bad. „But you don't have to be sorry! It's not your fault!"

Not the thing that she wanted to hear, apparently. „Of course it's my fault! I was sleeping on your back while you did all the walking! I could have at least watched out for you..." I felt really bad right now. The last thing I wanted was Mittens to be sad!

„Nah... I could have watched out too. This isn't the time for the 'Because of me'-game." - „You're right... How's your leg?" Oh how much I wished that she hadn't said that... „It's really itchy... Like my fur is moving!"

Mittens looked at it and shrieked back, when she saw that a bit of hair was actually twiching its way to the other side of the wound. „I mean, five mentioned something about artificial cells..." I was sure that I couldn't stand much more of that.

„Mmmm... Mittens, can I hold you for a second please?" She lifted her head up and blushed. „Of course! I mean, if it helps you." She stood up and layed down next to me again. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her towards me.

„Thank you..." It really did help against the earry feeling on my leg, just hugging her. And for some odd reason I never wanted that moment to end. After a minute or two, I noticed how Mittens started to lose her tense.

„Are you going to sleep again?", I asked, resulting in Mittens cheeks getting red, and a vague answer: „Well, who could resist? You are just very soft and warm..." I was honored to get such a compliment!

„Th- thanks... Uhm... am I really?" Maybe I wanted to exploit the compliment a little more, just for the sake of the cat talking to me, but I needed that distraction. „Of course! Your belly is really cozy too!"

I blushed. „Are you sure? It just feels normal to me..." - „It is! Here! I like this spot!" She stroked my belly with her paw, and for this moment I completely lost track of my leg, the shooting that was going on just a few meters beyond this hole in the ground and actually everything around me.

„It's really soft! Would you mind if I... ah forget it." What did she want? What could it be that Mittens didn't want to tell me, even after she had started the sentence? „Aw, you can't leave me hanging like this... What do you want to do?"

She blushed even more and replied: „Just... uhm... would you mind if I would move a bit closer?" My mind screamed 'do it'. Not in any way did I mind! Actually, I was about to ask her the same thing!

„Of course not! Make yourself comfortable!" The black cat seemed to be relieved about the answer, got her cheeks to the most red color they ever were, and dug her head into my chest. I totally zoned out of reality again. Just having Mittens next to me was all I needed to forget about my problems.

Fives P.O.V.

„ _HERE HAMSTER! COME HERE!"_ _Oh man, this is not good at all... What if he got hit by the explosion? What if the Maxians shot him? How could I tell the dog and the cat? „HERE HAMSTER!"_

Shooting. I headed for the next best tree, and spotted a rather big rock. _Come on Richy... on three... one... two... THREE!_ I ran towards the rock and hid behind. My armor was already damaged, normally a few bullets didn't do any damage at all, but this time I had to be more careful.

I held the rifle in my hands, went through the relieve process with an almost perfected push of the loading hole. As I imagined, a bullet flew out, hitting the ground. Usual schedule. Relieve, new mag, reload.

The shots clanked against the rock I was behind and slowly tore bits of it away. It was too dangerous to poke my head out, and nobody was here to yell at me for disobeying rule 4 in the scout laws: 'Eyes on target'.

It is technically forbidden to do the 'lucky shot', as general Wolf started calling it after a while. The 'Lucky shot' is simply taking your gun, pressing your back against cover, angling your gun over a shoulder and firing at enemys without knowing where your bullets go.

The only time that this is allowed is on confrontational fights, and only if you are in the first line with no Skull in front of you that you could accidently harm. But... I didn't see anyone anyways, so the I could risk a lucky shot, or 'oddshot', like general greentop called it.

 _Hide. Lock. Load. Angle. Fire._ I got to shoot my first magazin to its half, then I heared a call from a good distance right to me. _„EYES ON TARGET!"_ How does he even know when I am doing this all the time... _„YES, SIR, REX, SIR!"_

It seemed like I did manage to hit someone, as the bullet rain towards me stopped. But then there was something else... I heared a sqeaking sound... And it spoke... it was angry... „YOU HURT BOLT, NOW I WILL HURT YOU!"

It sounded like the hamster! _„HAMSTER! COME HERE!"_ I risked a peek over the rock, and to my horror saw the little guy jumping next to one of the Maxians! _Oh my holy..._ I ran out in the open without worrying about being shot at. I could take it, he couldn't.

If they were really from 5F29, like four told me just before we switched guard, the Skulls had to keep them safe from all outer space dangers. And this little guy was right next to a prime example of an outer space danger.

When I showed myself the Maxian started shooting. I could feel the recoil on my armor, but it didn't matter. It was damaged on the back, so as long as I didn't turn away from the fire, it wouldn't hurt me.

I lifted both of my hands up and manually switched the speech converter to 'Maxian'. _„Don't shoot! Just a second! Do NOT shoot!"_ Now the soldier was baffled. He stopped shooting at me, so at least he understood me.

But as I moved closer, he paniced again and was about to pull the trigger. I noticed and threw my gun on the floor. _„Don't shoot. I will not hurt you! Just let me get a bit closer..."_ Now he was confused, and still had the hamster next to him, who tried to get his attention.

„ _Come on buddy... Just come to my hand..."_ \- „NEVER! I WILL NOT LET THIS BEAST GET AWAY WITH THIS!" I knew that he was one of the fighty guys, so I just grabbed him and ran away, picking my gun up when I passed it. _„Please! I am forced to keep you safe! Don't put me in this situation ever again!"_

„But..." - _„No backtalk. I need you all three alive, or else I am fired, and you are dead! Now we need to get back to your friends."_ And with that I started walking back. But I really didn't believe what I saw next.

The dog and the cat were laying in each others arms, both asleep, both with a smile on their face. It was just too adorable not to take a picture of it. And that's what I did. I extended my helm-cam and held the scene in my armors memory forever. But there was no point in keeping them asleep. We needed to go.

Bolts P.O.V.

I woke up to something cold pressing against my side. A voice started talking in a metallic, but also very smoothing and relaxing tone: _„Hey there sleepyheads! Time to get up! This is not the right moment for a nap!"_

I slowly opened up my eyes, and saw Mittens cuddling against my chest. I instanly blushed. When she landed in the real world too, we got lost in each others gaze. _„Guys, I'm serious. Rex is already a good distance ahead of us. And if we don't catch up to him, there is no way that we are ever getting inside the outpost."_

For another second time seemed to stand still, then we were ripped out of our daydreams once and for all. _„Hey! Do you even listen to me? You can do your girlfriend – boyfriend stuff on the move too!"_

What did he just say? Girlfriend – Boyfriend stuff? As hard as I tried keeping my cool, that was enough for one day, and I just couldn't help but to become a tomato. „Y- yeah, you're right... we should go now..."

I made the first step out of instinct, but immidiately fell back down. „I can't walk! Are the ten minutes over yet?" Five looked at his com-link and said: _„Uhm, nope. You still have three more to go."_

„Oh no... How are we going to do this then?" The halfbot thought about that for a second, then responded with the only way that was logical: _„Maybe I should carry you."_

 **Three minutes of carrying... practically unarmed, and even after that, walking would be difficult. That is going to be a tight squeeze. Anyhow, shoutouts to Advina, goodbye und schönen Abend.**


	9. Deep conversations

Bolts P.O.V.

The halfbots armor was cold and uncomfortable. When he carried me in his arms I could feel every bone in my body that was hitting the metal. All I wanted was to get off of him and walk for myself, but I wasn't even able to stand up without falling over the next second, so I had to endure it.

„ _Alright. Now that I have to carry the dog, I can't use my rifle. And that means that we are defenseless for the next three minutes. We need to be VERY careful and quiet now."_ Mittens and I nodded, but silence and planning wasn't in the cards for Rhino.

„No way! I'll shoot!" Five sighed and replied: _„Sorry hamster-"_ \- „Just call me Rhino!" - _„Ok. Sorry Rhino, but you are too small to aim, or even shoot the gun."_ Instead of taking Fives words as given and not changable, the little brown hamster tried pulling the rifle out of its holder.

„ _Would you stop that please? It's too heavy!"_ Rhino was putting everything into it that he had. „Not... at all... just... watch... and... LEARN!" His tiny hands lost grip and accidently grabbed the trigger. With the remaining velocity that he had while slipping away, he pulled it and shot on the ground, resulting in us other three to jump. Or at least the halfbot and Mittens, I shrieked together on Fives arms.

He almost dropped me, and Mittens had a little mental breakdown on a tree stomp. „Eh- he he... Sorry?" - _„I really don't know how to explain this to you! Don't touch the gun! Please!"_ \- „But there needs to be a way of-" - _„Well you can't! Come on, listen to me! You. Can. Not. Operate. This. Thing."_

While Rhino and Five were arguing over the proper use of a 'scout rifle', I noticed the black cats back moving up and down really fast. „Uhm... guys, I think Mittens isn't ok." - _„Who is Mittens?"_ \- „The cat. Look!"

I pointed at her, and Five pulled over. _„Cat? Mit – tens? Are you ok?"_ All he got as an answer was a rather loud and quick breathing. _„Uh oh..."_ Now I was worried. „What is it?" - _„I think she is hyperventilating!"_

„What?" - „ _She's in a shock state. I guess the sudden loud noise and stress was just too much. And THAT means that I have to carry two animals now."_ One part of me was scared and worried for her, the other one was happy that the halfbot decided to lay her right on my chest.

But why did I feel that way? Why did I like her so close to me? That was a really weird feeling, almost as weird as the itching in my leg, that slowly decreased. I could really feel her shaking, but as soon as her paws slid down my sides and she was cuddling into my fur, I could see a little smile on her face.

I didn't miss the opportunity to lay my arm around her back and started stroking through her fur. She was still shaking, but with every time I moved my paw on her back she was cooling down a bit more.

„ _I have to admit, you two really look cute together."_ I blushed over his comment, and replied: „Oh... uhm... well, if you say so..." Mittens started purring and mubling in her sleep. _„Come on. It's so obvious that you have feelings for her! Even I can see that!"_

Now I was equally confused as embarrassed. „Wh- what do you mean with 'feelings for her'?" - _„Do you really think you could fool me?"_ \- „No! But what does 'Feelings for someone' mean?" Five tilted his head and continued: _„Uhm, you're kidding, right?"_

„If it's something out of the normal life, then I might not know about it..." - _„I have no idea what you are trying to tell me. Tell me. How do you feel when she is around?"_ I had to think about this for a moment. How did I feel? Actually, I felt better than without her...

„Good." - _„What do you prefer? Being around her or being alone?"_ The answer was clear the second he ended his sentence. „With her, of course!" - _„Ok, ok! That's a step in the right direction! Now, how do you feel when she is sad?"_

Thinking about that, I actually felt my stomach pulling toghether. „I hate it! I never want to see her sad!" - _„Perfect! Two more things: Do you feel a tingling in your belly when you see her?"_ \- „I... I don't know... yes? Maybe..."

„ _Ok, let's repeat that one, but out of a different context. Imagine her laughing. Over anything."_ Immidiately after I did, I felt a weird thing in my chest. Like I did when I bit in a lemon on day, but this time it was like I swallowed it whole!

„ _Done? Now, how does your belly feel?"_ \- „Wow... it... it feels strange..." - _„Yes! One last thing: Could you imagine your whole life on her side? Helping her out in difficult moments, being with her in happy moments?"_

„I would spend ANY moment with her!" - _„HA! See? Just as I told you! You have special feelings for this cat!"_ \- „We were on this point before. What does that mean?" Five tilted his head again and suddenly understood what I was trying to say.

„ _Oh! You want to know what your feelings mean?"_ \- „Yes! Please tell me already!" - _„You love her!"_ Wow. That caught me off guard. So many images and thoughts went through my mind that my vision blurred.

„Wow, I... I never thought that I would... But... No that's just... But how?" Five laughed and said: _„Look buddy. Love is a crazy thing. You know... I fell in love a few times. Everytime I thought it would be the right one. Everytime it turned out not to be the thing I was hoping for."_

I didn't understand. „What do you mean? Isn't love a thing that only happens once?" - _„You... You really have no idea of this stuff, do you?"_ \- „Nope." - _„Yeah I thought so. Let me tell you a story. Once I was in college._

 _And in my class, there was this girl. Her name was Amy."_ He started to sound sad, and I felt kinda bad for him. _„She was one of three girls in this class, and we had a pretty good connection too, it was some sort of soul mate thing."_

His voice cracked on this 'soul mate' part, but he quickly caught himself again and continued: _„Everyone had a PCL, even to my childhood, and we were chatting with each other all day long."_ I had to interrupt Five over a question: „What is PCL?"

„ _It's called Personal Comlink, just like the standard army comlink, but for normal day to day people. Anyways, Amy and I were chatting whenever we could, and we always laughed toghether, but then, one day..."_ The halfbot looked to the ground and slowed his walking, then shook his head and said: _„Nah, I'm over it. It's fine now."_

I felt really bad for him now. „Are you sure? Chances are that we will never see each other again. If you want to get something off your soul then tell me, because then you talked about it but I can't use the information against you."

„ _This isn't about information. It's about something I had a long time ago. But I see that what you have is something different! You really love her, and I bet she does too."_ \- „If you say so... Wait. Where is Rhino?"

„ _Uhm, he is... where is he?"_ We both looked around the region, but we couldn't find him. What we didn't know was, that he hid behind Fives helmet all the time and listened to everything we said. After playing hide and seek, and unintentionally worrying us, for a little longer, he showed himself with the words: „Hey! I was just walking on my own for a minute, did I miss something?"

Five and I looked at each other, and the answer was quickly found: „Nah, nothing at all!" We continued walking for another few minutes, and by this time my leg was already fixed and ready to go, but for nothing in the world did I want to trade this moment of Mittens sleeping on my chest.

But then, the halfbot suddenly stopped and said: „ _Psst... be quiet for a second..."_ He moved his head from one side to the other and tried to hear something. In the distance I noticed six creature moving.

„Five! There!" I pointed at them, and he looked over. _„Oh holy!"_ He ran to a tree and layed Mittens and me down on the ground. _„You care for her, I'll be there in just a moment!"_ I nodded back, and he took Rhino with him.

 **Don't worry just because you see the bold text, it doesn't mean the end of the story! Only this chapter, and I promise you to keep uploading new content. Is this the beginning of an adventure in an adventure? Let's just wait what happens to Rhino and Five. And where even are Rex, Four and the other five bots? Special thanks to Advina once again, goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	10. A loss and a gain

Fives P.O.V.

I was heading towards a hole in the ground that was deep enough for me to sit in without poking my head out. I threw myself in it and slid the gun out of its holder. _„_ _Right, Rhino, you are going to help me now."_

The hamster giggled, then replied: „But of course I will! Let's see what we can do!" How does he even imagine my job? Going around having fun all day on a battlefield? That's what TV makes you believe, the real world looks a bit different, but he will find that out sooner or later.

„ _Ok, this might destroy your view on shooting and war, but what you see in TV is nothing like what you are about to withness. If you have a weak stomach, go back to your friends."_ Rhino did look a bit worried now, but still stood strong in his opinion.

I heared steps not far away from me, and they only got closer, so I whispered: _„_ _Hamster, I need you to take a look where they are!"_ \- „Alright, moving up!" I sighed. A tiny bit of dirt came down from where he stepped, but overall it didn't seem like he was too noisy.

„Alright, let's see... AH! Enemies! Four, half a click, bearing 'round 50 degrees north! Heavily armed, three assaults, one Rocket!" I was stunned. How did he just... _„_ _You speak military?"_ The hamster looked at me in confusion for a second, and said: „Affirmative! I learned it from the magic box!"

„ _What magic box?"_ \- „You know, the thing with the moving pictures!" Now I understood. _„_ _Oh, you mean television... Yeah that makes sence. Do your people use the same words as ours?"_ \- „Maybe... Ok, they're coming closer!"

I was prepared. _„_ _Ok buddy. Get ready."_ I pressed myself against the wall of the hole and waited for five seconds. That was one of the things we learned in the bootcamp, to count the seconds of our code names, and then fire.

The whole idea behind it was, that we wouldn't all start shooting at the same time at the same enemy, and most of all, that not everyones magazine would run out at the same time too. I knew it was pointless, since I was the only one to be at this place, but I did it anyways.

When I was done counting, I turned around and got into shooting position. A bit of aiming and I fired at the soldiers. Rhino was right though, they were heavily armed. Right after they spotted me, they hid and shot back.

I managed to take one down before another one could hit my helmet visor. _„_ _GAH! Not again!"_ I opened up the capsule and held it against the broken part. The beam instanly detected the titanigum that it was made out of and started fixing it.

Titanigum is the most commonly used metal of the Skulls. Everything we build includes titanigum of some sort, or its two submaterials: Tatanigum and totanigum.

When the capsule was done, I clipped it into recharging on my chestplate and continued firing at the Maxians. „FIVE! ROCKET!" Just when I heared Rhinos scream and warning I noticed a silver-metallic thing racing towards me.

I duck down, just to see it flying straight over my head, leaving a trail of smoke behind. Right after it missed me by just a few centimeters, I heared the explosion behind me, followed by the sound of trees being ripped out of the ground and falling over.

„ _WHOA! THAT WAS CRAZY!"_ \- „THIS IS SO COOL!" I shot back, got another one of the assaut rifle soldiers down, but it ended again with a rocket directed to me. All I could do was taking it easy and getting one Maxian down a time.

Bolts P.O.V.

When Five and Rhino left, my focus went to the black cat sleeping on my chest while I was laying under a tree. Was it true? Did I really love Mittens? I never felt that way before... A sudden noise ripped me out of my thoughts. Gunfire.

Mittens eyes slowly opened and she yawned: „Goodmorning Boltie... How did you sleep?" Did she just call me 'Boltie'? Well that's weird, she never did that before! „Uhm... I didn't sleep at all. We are still on Maximus."

Just then she noticed her surroundings and her she jumped off me, blushing in embarrassed. „I- I'm sorry, did I nap away again? What is going on with me?" - „I have no idea... Maybe it's just the stress. Did you at least have nice dream?"

When I mentioned dreams she blushed even more and studdered: „Y- yeah... Well, nothing too important... You know, just normal stuff, being a cat, eating food, playing with a dog..." - „Wait, what was that last thing? I couldn't underst-"

My sentence was apruptly cut off, when a rocket hit a tree not even ten meters away from us. Mittens and I both jumped up at the same time and our hearts were racing. „Wh- what was that?" I looked at the tree falling over and the smoke and dust cloud over its stomp and replied: „That... that must have been a rocket!"

„This is not good. This never was good. I hate this! Why are we here? Why did we come here? We could have waited for ExoSkull to come back, half an hour doesn't seem that bad..." She went on ranting for a bit longer, then a second explosion went off, closer than the first one this time.

I had my conclusion: „We need to get out of here!", I grabbed the cat and threw her on my back again, then ran in the direction that Five went. When I saw him kneeling in the hole he was in, I jumped down too, but to my surprise the ground was a bit wet, so I slipped away and right into his armor.

„ _DOG! NO! GET OUT OF HERE! THIS IS TOO DANGEROUS!"_ \- „This is safer than being alone!" The halfbot saw his opportunity here: _„_ _You are not alone, you have the cat! With her you will NEVER be alone!"_

We both looked away from each other and I heavily blushed. Maybe she did too, I didn't see it... _„_ _We need to get away!"_ Another explosive pipe flew towards us, this time hitting right in front of the hole.

„ _Follow me!"_ One big leap out of our pit and we were on the run. The bullets hit everywhere next to us, hitting Five in the back, and his armor started to break off a bit. _„_ _Run further! I will keep on fighting them! Rhino, you go with the dog and the cat!"_

Just when he placed the brown hamster on my back I heared the rocketlauncher firing again. The halfbot turned around, aimed at the threat while still running and shot. I looked back just in the right moment to see him getting hit by the rocket.

As he was screaming he flew backwards, and for a moment, everything seemed to have slowed down. The rain of dirt, the smoke, Fives screams and shouts, the sound of the explosion and a totally wrecked halfbot hitting the ground. „FIIIIIVE!"

I couldn't hold myself back, and turned around to see after him. Bad mistake. As I approached him, he still moved a bit, but then his head sacked down. After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, a light on his helmet started flashing red.

On, off. On, off. Was he... dead? „Five? Five! Please! You can't leave us here like that! Come back!" Mittens hopped off me and went to his visor. Something happened. A shudder quickly folded itself in and revealed Fives face.

He looked a bit like ExoSkull, really human, even though he wasn't from our planet. A normal man, not old, but a face that clearly marked a career as a soldier. Around his mouth there was a short beard, and his eyes were closed.

We had no time for regrets though, as the Maxians came over and said something in a language I didn't understand. They all lauged, except for the rocketlauncher guy. One of the other ones pointed his rifle at me and smiled. I was too scared to move.

Just when I thought my life was now officially over, we heared a whistle from the woods. The Maxians shrieked back and looked around themselfes. Then, out of nowhere, a dog jumped between us and them. It was a light brown boxer, with white paws and a white stripe that lead from his eyes to the snout.

„Stand. Back. Let me handle this!", he said. I noticed that he had something like a backpack on him. Suddenly, two little gatling guns popped folded out on arms that followed his eyes. They spun up and unleashed a rain of bullets at the Maxians.

Heavy armor aside, they were all down pretty quickly. The rocketlauncher guy started running away, but was caught by the boxer jumping onto, and shooting him. We all stared at the scene in horror, but also relieve.

When he got back, he cheerfully said: „You guys were lucky that I was around!" - „Y- yeah... thanks!" He retracted the gatling guns to his backpack and was about to say something, but then he froze.

„A- Are you Bolt?" _Wow, he knows my name?_ „Yes that's me, this is Mittens and the hamster here is Rhino." - „Ok! Let's skip the smalltalk, my name is Mauser, and I am ExoSkulls dog. He is looking for you, we need to go!"

„No wait! What about Five?" Mauser seemed confused. „Which Five? We have many Fives!" I pointed at the halfbot laying on the grass, the light still flashing. „This one! The guy who got us here!"

„Oh... I see. Yeah, he's propably dead, let's get moving!" I refused to take this answer. „Isn't there anything you could do for him?" The boxer sighed, then replied: „Look Bolt, this is just one of a few billion halfbots we have. I don't say that his life doesn't matter, that would be wrong, but we can't provide medical assistance for everyone on the field."

Just now we noticed Rhino sitting on Fives visor, looking down at his face. He wiped a tear away from his cheek and turned around. His eyes were filled with water, and his voice was more than unstable when he said: „This is cruel... Why does he have to die?"

Mauser went over to him and sighed again. „I know. I know how that feels. Do you see the flashing red light on his helmet?" Rhino nodded. „Every halfbot armor is packed with basic life support. As long as this thing is blinking red, we know that the life support is working, and it's keeping him alive."

Rhino brightened up a bit. „So... you mean that he isn't dead?" - „Yet. He isn't dead _yet_. When the situation at 88.0 gets better, our medics will swarm out and try to save everyone they can. ExoSkull is already working on it, but we need to go now, or your planet won't survive!"

Right. Our planet. „Ok you three, saddle up. We'll discuss things on our way." One last glance at Five and the blinking light, then we were off to the outpost at grid 88.0 again.

 **Well, with Mauser on their side they shouldn't have too much of a problem, right? Let's hope that Five comes through... Special thanks to Advina, goodbye und schönen Abend noch.**


	11. A certain jealous white shepherd

Bolts P.O.V.

Something seemed odd about Mauser. Maybe it was his backpack and the guns attached to it, maybe it was his whole appearence, yet I had to say, he did look kinda cool... As much as I tried to trust him, there still was this bit of doubt in him.

I mean, we had a fully armored halfbot with us, as big as the Maxians themselfes, now we were only animals, not half as protected, and basicly with the same amount of clue as before: None. We were walking for quite some time now, the gunfire increasing as we went on, and he I saw how Mittens looked at him.

I could tell by her eyes that she had interest in him, I just knew it! The pure thought of the cat in the boxers arms gnawed on my nerves. I didn't say that I hate him, I just didn't like him. At all.

While all of this rattled through my head, Rhino was sitting on top of Mausers head, and they were having a little conversation. „So you're sure that we reach ExoSkull in time?" - „Well, at least I'm trying to get you there safely."

„But, if you were sent out to search for us, he must have known where are! How is that possible?" - „He got informed of the stolen cruiser, and where it crashed down. Then he asked if anyone had seen you and when they said that you went with Rex, he gave me the order to look for you."

„Makes sence... You said that you are ExoSkulls dog, right?" A grin widened on Mausers face as he replied: „Yep, and I couldn't be happier about it!" - „Why?" - „HA! He's my best friend of all times! He rescued me when I was two years old, and I live with him to this day!"

What a great story... How is any of this important to our planet? Should I interrupt them? Nah, I need him. „So how old are you now?" - „Well, if you really want to know, I am 237 now, he he..." I was stunned. He looked so young!

„Wow! That is really old! Aspecially for a dog! Does everyone from your planet live that long?" - „Nope, but Jackie and the doc made my final age to be as old as his! Approximently..." After a few moments of silent walking Mittens spoke out the question that everyone had: „Who is Jackie?"

„Jack. His name is Jack. Commander ExoSkull. I call him Jackie and he calls me Maus, that's just how we do it from day to day." He quickly added: „But don't call him by his first name. Only Drendor, Tiffany, the doc and I can do that. And of course the Skull family. And general Heartbeat."

I decided that I should say something too: „We met this Heartbeat guy before. I hope that he isn't like this the whole time!" Mauser laughed and said: „Your hopes have been denied, my friend," _I am not your friend!_ „Heartbeat is a loud jerk most of the time, except when he's talking to Exo or one of the other feared generals!"

„Feared generals? What are you talking about?" - „There are four generals whose names scare our people more than our enemies: Phantom, Greentop, Wolf and Heartbeat." - „They sound dangerous..."

„Well they are! You never heared of the block C story, right?" I had no idea what he was talking about. „No... Why? Is it important?" - „Not really. Should I tell anyways?" Mittens, Rhino and I looked at each other, nodded and the black cat said: „Sure, why not?"

„It all started on the first day of training at a halfbot bootcamp. General Phantoms soldiers were making trouble though, as they didn't listen to him at all, laughed everytime he said something and refused to take his orders.

He basicly called Greentop, Wolf and Heartbeat over and threatened his scouts. When they still made fun of him, the four generals started opening the helmets and beating the blood out of them. A lot of jaws were broken that day, and noone ever refused an order ever again."

That... That really was impressive. We continued walking until we saw a big wall with gatling guns mounted to their tops. „We are there!", the boxer cheerfully said, and extended his guns now. I was so relieved to hear that.

The noise was really loud, and my ears felt like they would explode any second. Mauser had to shout for us tho hear him. „Ok, when I say go, you run over to the gate!" We nodded once again and got ready.

He spun up his guns and prepared to jump out. At the last second before he did so, he looked back at me, Rhino and then Mittens and... smiled at her! I had this really strong urge of telling him to get away from her, but I knew that he had two reasons for me to stay away. And they both fired at incredible speed.

Bullets flew towards him, and the next second he called: „GO! NOW! RUUUUN!" We sprinted forwards. I could see the end of the trees, leading to a small patch of plain grass, surrounded by the forest.

In the middle of this patch there was this walled off building. The outpost. The outpost where ExoSkull was waiting for us. As we reached the gate it opened up, and Mauser was running inside too.

He retracted his gatling guns and let out a huge: „YEEEEEHAW!", followed by laughter. And I have to admit one thing, his laugh really is catchy, and I couldn't resist smiling, even if I wanted to.

Just then I noticed a familliar figure at the other wall, standing on the platform: ExoSkull! „Oh man! That was fun! Ok guys, the commander is right over there! Let's just say hello and you're on your way!"

Finally. By then, ExoSkull already noticed us. „HEEEEY MAUS! Nice to see you again!" - „Hi Jackie! Look who I found!" He turned his head over to us and smiled. „Bolt! I've been looking for you everywhere! Why did you fly that old cruiser?"

„We wanted to save humanity on our own, since you had better things to do." - „But I was worried! I left PistoSkull at your owners house in exchange for you! If you would have died, all the good memories would have been gone too!"

„Is this all you care about?" - „Call me corrupt, call me careless, I just want to get my hands on my gun again. And I need you. And your planet needs you too. So hop in the Skullion and we are gone!"

We went to the landing platform behind the building and got inside the jet like thing. „Mauser, I will need you too!" Oh great. This guy is coming with us. „But of course! I will gladly follow you around whereever you go, ha ha!"

Something inside me told me that the light brown boxer was really attached to this... cyborg. Mittens and I went on the back seat, Rhino again to the control panel. „Hey Bolt, is there still space for another dog?"

Oh no. There will never be space for you, as long as you are trying to get Mittens! But I couldn't say it like this. „Uhm, sure." I got closer to the black cat and made room for Mauser. He was a quite a bit bigger than me, very muscular and had a rough, but smoothing voice. I saw him as a threat, even though he saved our lifes.

And worst of all, Five was still out there! „I hope that Five is going to survive..." Everything went silent. „Did you really... get emotionally... befriended... Did... Did you befriend a halfbot?" - „Well, yes. He helped us out!"

„Oh great. Now I feel bad if he doesn't make it. Keep quiet for a second." I had no idea what he was about to do. „88.0? Yes, this is commander ExoSkull. … … There is a wounded halfbot out in the open, please send a medic! … … I know that there are many wounded halfbots out there! Just sent them to a Five please!"

Was he trying to help him? „Hey Maus, where did you find them?" - „Lemme think... Uhm, 'prox four hundret meters away from the outpost. East." - „You heared it seven, get the medics out! … … Good. Exo out."

We ascended into the endlessness of space, charging our planet. Or at least I thought so. After a couple of minutes without anyone talking, Mauser said: „Soooo, Bolt, how did you and the other two meet?"

Maybe if I just keep it cool he won't notice that I don't like him. „I was a TV star, then I got lost somewhere far away from home, got to know Mittens, we found Rhino and went home. I also learned that I have no super powers at all, and that was quite a journey."

Mauser giggled. „What do you mean, no super powers? Did you actually believe you had some?" Oh please stop talking already. „Yeah, everyone made me think I did." - „Makes sence, I guess." - „Guys, I don't want to interrupt your conversation, but we are about to hyperjump again, so don't touch anyone. Thanks!"

I got pressed in my seat when the orb of light destructed the spacecraft, and rebuilt it the second we left. I wonder how that looks from the outside. What I didn't like to see at all though, was that the planet we approached wasn't our one.

„Oh come on! You said that we are going to save humanity now! What are we doing this time?" - „Hey... relax buddy. If we want your people to leave your planet for a week, in order to make space for our special forces, we need to get them somewhere to go right?"

Rhino was hyped again. „Are we going to fly a giant ship now?" - „Ha, but of course! Not only one though! TEN!" As we landed, and the hamster cooled down from his giggle marathon, ExoSkull opened the windshield, and we got out.

We were standing on a landing pad, in front of us a couple of ships. Not just ordinary ones. They were gigantic! Nothing compared to the Titan, but still, they were really big! „Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, TERRA ONE!"

I had no idea what to say. Mittens however did: „Are these things terra one?" Mauser and the commander looked at each other and started laughing. The boxers laugh made us all smile again. How does he do that?

„Of course not, hehe, this you are standing on it! This is the first planet we ever took over! Not far away from here is my homeplanet, Terra zero! The things you see over there, those are the Omegas!"

I had to admit, Omega was a really cool name for something. „These are Omega two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten! And THIS!" He pressed a button on his arm. „THIS is Omega ONE! MUHAHAAAA!"

I didn't know why, but from somewhere there was music playing. Epic music, the kind of music that you would hear in a movie when something big showed up. And it did. Something REALLY big was moving out of the ground, with the music intesifying.

And it didn't stop. It only grew. The giant metal thing that rose from the ground just didn't stop growing. When it finally did, we could see its full lenght and size. Not as big as the titan, again, but twice size that the other Omegas had.

„May I present, the mothership. The one and only Omega one, the ship that we built, that started our space age!" The commander was really proud of it. And I could see why. „Ok, Mauser, you stay here with them, and I'll go see what the captains are up to. See ya!"

„See ya too, buddy! Oh man, this guy is great! Ok, so, are there any questions? Anything you want to do before leaving?" There was so much that I wanted to ask him, but I kept quiet. As I said, we needed him, and my questions would most likely be contraproductive.

 **Oh the Omegas... Did you know that ExoSkull originally only wanted his world to be under his control? And that the Skulls started off as an army you could hire to get rid of someone, or to give support in wars? No? Well, I didn't explain it, so there is no way you could have anyways. Anyhow, thanks to Advina, of course I want to thank everyone else for reading too, let's hope that they make it without crashing the Omega one, because this thing is old and rusty, and hadn't seen the daylight for a lot of years now. Goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	12. An old face

Mausers P.O.V.

As Jack went to see after the captains, I noticed Bolt staring at me. Maybe he was just sunk in his thoughts, but his eyes weren't empty, they were directed at me on purpose. _I should propably say something to break the ice._

„Uhm, are you ok? Your leg doesn't seem too fine..." The white dogs mimic changed, and he shook his head, then went on to telling me: „Nah, it's good, I got hit by a bullet, but Five fixerd it." - „Oh, did he use one of these capsule medipack things?" - „Yes, why?"

Oh no... „And you haven't seen a doctor since then?" Now he looked worried. „N- no, but why?" _Should I tell him the nice way, or just flat out say it... Uhm..._ „Well, because it _could_ be, at a _tiny_ chance, that your legs structure will _kinda_ fall appart and weld together in a way that isn't exactly like you knew it before and-"

„You mean it will get disorted and never the same again?" Ok, he understood. „Yep." - „And how are we going to prevent that?" - „Ah, just let me handle it! I have an advanced medipack on my multicoat!"

I gave the chip in my head the signal to extend the healing tools, and it must have seemed really scary to the two visitors, because they both jumped at the same time. But, wasn't there a third guy too? Where did he go? Anyways, I had better things to do. „Hey, you don't have to worry! This won't hurt!"

„Oh no. OH NO! I will not do that again!" _He is afraid. I know the capsule hurts, but this is something different!_ Just then the black cat entered the conversation: „Bolt, I think you should let him do it. I trust him."

 _Gnaw. How cute._ When she said that, the white dogs face became a bit angry. „Well, I certainly don't." - „Look Bolt, this is not going to hurt at all! And if it does, Mittens can hold your paw, right?"

Now they both blushed. Were they... Nah, why would they? Bolt looked over to Mittens, sighed and said: „Alright. I'll do it." Finally. „Ok, just lay down and stretch your leg out. Close your eyes or something and tell me when you're ready!"

The dog did as I told him to, and when he held out his leg, I could clearly see that he was shaking. „Oh don't worry, it'll all be over soon!" I let the arms get close to him and put a little screen over my right eye that worked as a heart rate monitor, but also as a magnifying glass, and waited for him to give me the signal.

„I think... I think you can start now!" With this he pressed his eyelids together and fletched his teeth, awaiting the pain. The pain that never came. When I started with the procedure, I was fully concentrated. One cut to the wrong place and I would have to start all over again. I extended the nerv killers, as we call them, over the end of his leg and began.

The same as always. Needle in, cell sample, analyze, reproduce, put in place, make room, fill in, stitch together and repeat. I had a lesson from the doc once, who told me all about advanced limb fixing.

I also noticed that Bold was shaking less and less as I went on, so I said: „See? Not that bad at all, right?" No answer. „Right?" Still nothing. I stopped, in fear that he would have passed out or something, but instead I got to see a dog and a cat staring in each others eyes and completely zoning out of reality.

How cute. I decided that I didn't want to interrupt them, and just went on fixing him. When I was done, I retracted my gear and left them alone, still in the same position. _Let's see when they'll notice._

-Meanwhile-

ExoSkulls P.O.V.

So many years that the Omega one hadn't been used, now it would help a little, almost meaningless planet to survive. Well, I guess we have to do it for them, because the slimes are a completely different caliber of dangerous.

I didn't remember it being so big though! When I approached the entrance I saw one of the captains. „HEY THERE!", I shouted over to him, overtuning the sound of the mashines that restored the ship and wiped the dust off.

He turned around and yelled: _„GOOD MORNING COMMANDER!"_ Over to me. What a nice guy. We both got inside and closed the door behind us. „Captain... uhm..." - _„Wilfred, sir!"_ \- „Right. Captain Wilfred. Nice to see you, you're one of the old ones, aren't you?"

„ _Yes sir, I was one of the first to ever manouver the Preditor!"_ Oh right, I remember this guy! „Well, nice to have you back on duty, Wilfred. So, how's retirement?" - _„Gah, nothing to do, just sitting inside the house, waiting for the night to come to fall asleep again. Boring."_

„At least now you got some action!" - _„And I am looking forward to it like I never did before!"_ \- „Great. Let's inspect the Omega and turn the keys the first time in a long one!" - _„I've so been waiting for this!"_

Through the corridor up to one of the storage bays, there is a little window, just big enough to look outside. And I saw something that I didn't think I would see. Ever. A dog and a cat staring in each others faces, with the biggest grin on it that you could imagine. A wonderful sight. But I had to move, 5F29 didn't wait.

In the normal areas the doors had motion sensors, so if you walked towards them, they would automaticly open up. When we got to the rooms like captains lounge or capacitors, I had to hold my ID card against a scanner.

The great thing about my ID card is, that as the commander, and basicly founder of the Skulls, there are no rooms that I can't enter, so I had full access to everywhere at any given time I wanted to! When we reached the bridge, there was already a man standing inside. I knew who he was even before I saw his face.

„Morris. I didn't think I would meet you any time soon..." The guy turned around and looked me in the eyes. His were cold, clear and free of any emotion. As always. „Morris, who let you in?" No answer.

„I will ask only one more time." A few seconds went by and I grabbed the revolver I built when I was younger. It always gave me the feeling of security. I was about to pull it out and point it at him, but Morris answered me first.

„I killed a few guards." My eyes tightened, and I moved closer to him with every word I said: „Who do you think you are to show up like this? Who do you think you are to show up at all?" Dead. I stared in a dead face. Wounded and scarred from many fights, but afraid of nothing. One giant scar went from his forehead to his mouth over his left eye.

He got it when he helped fighting me when my first grandson rebelled against me and indirectly killed his grandmother by sending Morris after her. His grandmother... My wife, Ellie... I carry the shotgun she built to this day and keep it in honor.

„I want to make peace with you, Exo." - „Don't call me that way! I am still commander ExoSkull to you!" For once he smiled, but the smile instanly vanished. „You never were. We were friends, don't you remember?"

I pressed my teeth together and took a deep breath. „Get. Out. Now." - „I know you wouldn't kill me." I gripped my revolver again, ready to shoot. But he was right. I just couldn't do it... „I told you. GET OUT!"

I pointed the gun at his head. Not even a flinch. He just continued staring at me. „I will help you against the slimes, Exo. I will prove that I can turn to your side, like the friend I was." Lies. I knew he was lieing, I knew him too well to see it.

„This is my last warning Morris. Get out, or die." - „Then shoot me." My grip weakened. He was determined to help me. He meant it. I sighed and put the gun back in its holder. „You have one last chance Morris. You came back from wherever you've been for the last couple of years, just to make peace. I have no choice but to trust you, Morris."

I ripped the revolver out again and let it rest directly between his cold, dead eyes. „But if you don't behave, then you can eat lead!" The guy chuckled and just said: „I knew you'd make the right choice, Exo.", before walking out of the bridge room, leaving me and Wilfred alone.

Nobody said a thing, until Mauser came in, with Bolt and Mittens behind him. „W- was that..." I sighed. „Yes Maus. Morris is back." - „OH I WILL GET THAT GUY AND RIP HIS-" - „Easy buddy. He wants to help us."

Mauser looked at me as if he'd seen a ghost. „Y- you didn't really accept any apology that he did, right? Remember what happened last time?" Last time. Last time he almost wrecked Swift Shooter...

„Yes I do. Don't worry. I will drop him off somwhere over 5F29 a day before the special forces are ready. Alone with the slimes, a planet against one, even Morris can't survive that." Now Mauser was the one to sigh. „You should have taken the opportunity to shoot him, Jackie..."

„I know. But I have this feeling that he might end up being important for us. Now, feel free to show our guests what the Omega one has to offer. Wilfred, we will get this beast moving!" Everyone nodded, and Mauser, Bolt and Mittens left. What none of us knew though, was that a little brown hamster listend to all of what we were saying, and followed Morris outside...

 **It must be confusing if you don't know who Morris is, right? Well, he was a really good friend of ExoSkull, before he got hired by HypoSkull, the son of EchoSkull and grandson of ExoSkull, to kill his grandmother with a precise shot in the head. He had a huge fight with Exo after that, bullets flew, swords were wielded, and at the end, he managed to escape. HypoSkull however flew away, befriending the grolocs, that later became the second worst enemy of the Skulls, right after the slimes. Thanks for reading, goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	13. Liftoff

Rhinos P.O.V.

This guy was the defenition of suspicious! A cold face, dead eyes, no expression, yet he had a scar on his mouth that made it look like he was grinning. He walked out of the bridge room, and held a card against a metal box.

It beeped, then the door opened up. I ran after him, the door closed right behind me, and I saw how Mauser, Bolt and Mittens came in the opposite direction. Mauser looked at him in a weird way, but nobody noticed me.

Another door beeped. When he was outside, I hid on a shelf. I didn't know what he was doing, but suddenly I heared his voice. „Yes. … I got the old circuit bag tied around my fingers. … Of course I know that he will try to get rid of me! But for right now I have to act on."

What was he talking about? And who did he talk to? „I see. Don't worry. The slimes are our smallest problem now." He had a strange accent, simmilar to a russian one, but with a mix of an australian accent too...

„As I said: Don't worry about the slimes. I got it under control. Exo is our problem!" _Oh, a problem, hm? We'll see how big that grows when I tell ExoSkull what I just heared!_ I was about to run back to the bridge when Morris said something that got my attention: „The animals? Well, that boxer is always around him, he could get dangerous. But there are three new ones now!"

He was talking about us! „Yes, a white shepherd, a black cat and a tiny brown guinea pig." _WHAT? DID HE JUST CALL ME GUINEA PIG? I AM A HAMSTER! OH I WILL SHOW YOU HOW_ „The cat is harmless annd the dog tries to stay out of conflicts, but the guinea pig... … What? Oh, of course. It's a hamster, I forgot."

 _At least he got this right now. Who is he talking to anyways that he knows suddenly?_ „The hamster can get dangerous." _E- excuse me? Are we still speaking about me?_ „This little guy always puts his nose in things that aren't meant for him."

 _What is he talking about?_ „Stealing a cruiser, running up to a Maxian, listening to other peoples conversations while hiding behind a cardboard box on a shelf..." _Oh, so that's what he... WAIT! DID HE JUST_

„I'll call you back." His earbud made a beeping sound and he chuckled. „I have my eyes everywhere. Don't think I didn't see you." A few metal clicking sounds and I knew what he was doing even without looking.

I ran. I ran as fast as I can, while Morris fired at me with a submashinegun in his right hand. It was silenced and rattered bullets behind me, only missing me by a millimeter. More stuff falling over and getting wrecked where I was just a second ago, and it left a trail of hit marks behind.

I jumped down from the shelf and hid in another one behind some metal doors. The crazed guy opened them and pointed his gun at me, while looking on the ground. „You should have never come here."

He shot. But I was still alive... and the shot was louder than before! I looked up and saw him staring at his hand, the smg falling on the floor and ExoSkull standing in the doorway. „What are you doing in here?"

He kicked the shudders with his foot and closed it that way. „Nothing... I just saw a rat." - „Then don't shoot it. You know that this is a-" - „A cleaning cupboard, I know." He held the ID against a scanner, and the door opened.

Just before leaving, he turned around and said: „I think this ship has a rodent problem..." Then he was gone. My heart was racing. „Is... is it safe to come out?" The commander spun around and asked: „Who is there?"

„Its me, Rhino!" He put the gun back down. „Oh, what are you doing there?" I poked my head out and replied: „I followed this Morris guy and he said that he knows that you want to get rid of him!"

ExoSkulls mimic froze.

„Who was he talking to?" I had no idea... „Uhm, I don't know..." - „Ok. So he knows that I want him gone, but he doesn't want me to know that. Yet I know that he knows that I want him gone, but he shouldn't know that!"

My head hurt. „Too much knowledge..." - „Hm, you're right. Let's just act as if nothing happened and turn on the engines. Everything else will be discussed later on."

-Meanwhile-

Bolts P.O.V.

„And this is one of the two primary storage bays!", Mauser explained, as we did the grand tour around the Omega one. „But, that doesn't seem like too much space..." We were inside a giant room, mostly empty, but not big enough for the entire earth to fit it.

„Well, we are limited by what this ship can transport! Besides, this is only for getting your people from one planet to another!" - „What do you mean by that?" - „I mean, we can't store all your humans in the Omegas, for one, thogether the only hold around a billion people, and second, they would be standing for a week. Nobody wants that, right?"

True that. „I guess so..." Mittens was stunned by the size of the room she was just in. „So you have to fly seven times from earth to another planet, just to keep us safe?" - „Of course! And an eightht time for animals!"

„Where are the humans going anyways?" Mauser thought about that and then replied: „To Terra 2905! This is a guest planet exactly for situations like these! And it's really close to 5F29!" - „You have planets just for visitors?"

„Human storage. They will get a house and everything they need, be together on vacation with free food and drinks, all while their planet gets wiped off of the slimes! That is just great, isn't it?" I had to say, it was really generous...

„ _Listen up crew! This is captain Wilfred speaking! We are going to turn on the generators!"_ The voice from the speaker scared me a tiny bit, no bell warning about an incoming message, just a guy shouting in a microphone.

„It's about time, ha ha!" Moments later I felt the floor vibrating, and it made a deep howling sound. „This is it! Time to lift this thing up!" - _„Crew, if you want to see the liftoff, I would reccomend going to a window now! I will count down from ten!"_

Wow. That was the friendliest pilot I have ever heared. It's like he doesn't take his job serious, yet he has to lift this monstrocity! „You should look outside! It will blow your mind!", Mauser adviced us.

„ _Ten!"_ I felt adrenaline shooting down my vains, even though I didn't have to do anything. _„Nine!"_ This will take forever. _„Eight!"_ Just a few more seconds and we are saving our planet! _„Seven!"_ Wait! No one knows about the slimes on earth! _„Six!"_

Weren't we supposed to tell them first? _„Five!"_ I guess ExoSkull knows what to do... _„Four!"_ I felt the vibrations getting stronger, and the ship moved in a weird direction. _„Three!"_ Oh my... where were we going? The Planet under us started to lean away from us!

„ _Two!"_ We were now pointing away from the planet, but it still felt like it was under us! _„ONE!"_ Oh, artificial gravity... _„LAUNCH!"_ Metal clanking, followed by big blue orbs shooting out of the back.

We were moving. And excellerating fast! _„Ground clearence!"_ This truely was amazing. I had to admit, that was really impressive. _„Taking course to sector 5F29, planet 2!"_ Wait, wasn't 5F29 the planet before?

I really wasn't going to question anything anymore. „Ok guys, we're off. Just a few kilometers away from Terra one and we'll hyperjump!" Oh great, more of that... „Oh! And I almost forgot! I spoke to Jackie and asked him if your person could have a special place in the ship!"

That blew me away for a second. „Y- you did what?" - „I asked Exo if your person could have a special place in the Omega one! I don't wan't to seperate you two any more than you already are!"

Now I felt bad for not trusting him... „Thanks... No really! Thanks!" - „Ah, no problem!" - „I just... I didn't think you could care that much for someone you don't know..." - „That is just something I do!"

It was the best to leave it at that. _„Alright crew! We have around ten minutes until we enter the hyperjump save zone! Get some rest, get some motivation, and Mauser plus the ttwo others, get to the bridge! Immidiately!"_

„Well, that's our call!" The pilot had a rather rough tone on the 'immidiately'... _I hope we didn't do anything wrong or made the commander mad. That would not help at all..._ _„I have to correct myself, please go to lauch deck 1!"_

I didn't know what that meant. „Uhm, where is lauch deck 1?" Mauser sighed and laughed. „Don't worry, I'll take you there! If I assume correctly, this is the part where you fly to your planet and warn the humans!" I could only say it again: „Finally."


	14. On air

Bolts P.O.V.

When we arrived at the launch deck, we were greeted by the commander and Rhino sitting on his shoulder. „Ah yes! I see you are here! Let's save the earth, don't you think?" Certainly. „Yep. I am ready!" Secretly though, I wasn't.

„And where is the ship?", Mittens asked. Good question, it wasn't there! Didn't ExoSkull leave it at this Terra one thing? The commander just smiled and pointed at some rails leading to a closed door, which suddenly opened up, and the Skullion was pulled in by two arms under the rails.

„Oh, I guess that will do..." A platform lifted the thing up and turned it the other way so that it was ready to take off. „Intelligent Autopilot!" The visor folded to the right again and we jumped inside. Hopefully for the last time.

The Guardian saluted us, and the ship started vibrating. The door opened up and the engines started rotating. Mausers tail started wagging and it kinda worried me over what was about to come next. „Are we going to do a powerstart now?", he asked, and my mind was filled with: 'Whatever that is, please don't do it!'

„Eeeeeyup! Hold on to something, it's going to be a bumpy ride!" I felt Mittens wrapping around my arm and pressing herself in my side. I was too scared to blush. Rhino and Mauser however were hyped.

„Let's do this! HA HA HAAA!" And with this, the arms underneath the ship catapulted us forward on the rails, which resulted in us being pushed back in our seats. These three seconds seemed like an eternity.

Even after we shot out of the Omega one, it wasn't over! The light for 'Artificial Gravity not active' was flashing, and we were victims to 200 km/h of velocity, until ExoSkull finally decided to switch it on.

The following five minutes were filled with panting and screaming, three because of joy, two because of fear. I still had to admit that it felt funny. After a few more minutes, the black cat realized that she was still holding my arm and slowly let go of me.

„Alright guys, if you want to see the Omegas jumping, then you should look out of the window now!" That caught my attention. Just as I turned my head the first spacecrafts were being soaked up by light and shot away.

First it was blue lightning coming out a few spinning balls on the back, then the ship got dismantled by a bright ring, pulled into one orb of light and then, with an explosion, suddenly gone. „Overlight speed. You can't even see it happening anymore."

„Ok, I have to recap the coordinates for 5F29. Mauser, would you please explain the plan?" - „But of course! So, here is how we are going to do it: First, we land on your earth. Second, we find a massive transmition center with big antennas or sattelite dishes and then we are going to blast our speech directly to all devices on the planet! The last step is to get all humans onto the Omegas, but that is our sorrow."

At least we knew what to do now. „Fine, but how are we going to pull that off? Not everyone is watching TV, not everyone is awake at the same time!" - „Don't worry about it, I'm sure Exo has something for that too!"

The commander nodded and we got ready to hyperjump. After a sucessful jump and a little flight in warp drive we reached the earth. I was really happy to see it. So happy, that I just had to hug the cat next to me.

We both went red, but this time nobody cared what the others could think. I noticed Mauser staring at us from behind, and he was... smiling? That made no sence to me. But I had barely any time to think about it, because we were landing.

It was a big open space, propably a parking lot, and we were right next to a radio tower. We all got out and ExoSkull opened up his Comlink. „Hack, how's the weather down there?" - _„Dry as always Exo! It doesn't rain in the Headquarters!"_ \- „Great! All systems running?" - _„Ready to be used. But we had a little incident with Rocket..."_

„Oh god, did he fire inside again?" - _„Kinda. Take a wild guess why."_ \- „Upgrade?" - _„Upgrade."_ I had no idea what they were talking about. „Ok, I will plug Uplink into this thing right here and youu are going to do your job."

„ _Roger. This is going to be a piece of cake!"_ After setting a few things up, ExoSkull turned to me and said: „Take this Voice decoder and plug it into your ear. The mic will extend automaticly." I did as he told me to, and a little stick shot out to my mouth. „Am I ready to go?" - „You are ready to go."

Good. Now we were getting somewhere! „Maus, you watch the cat and the hamster, Bolt and I are going to do this now!" The boxer sit down and said with a serious look on his face: „Yes sir!", after which he burst out laughing.

Again, with a very catchy laugh. I didn't really like the idea of leaving him with Mittens alone, but I had something to do.

When we got to the tower we saw that it had a locked door. ExoSkull tried kicking it in, but it was too strong, so he tapped his robotic eye and a little laser shot out of it. He cut the lock out and took a step back, before kicking it again, this time with the wanted result.

We were now standing in a small room. „Ah! This should work!" He plugged a little ball into a computer, seemingly with a fitting dock for it, and pressed a button. It flashed for a second, made a few beeps, and then it did nothing.

„Hackbot, your turn!" - _„Understood! Prepare the camera!"_ ExoSkull took out another gadget and placed it on a shelf, just high enough for him to be filmed, and another one on my level. Meanwhile, the thing on the computer started humming, and slowly but surely the whole tower came to life.

„ _Ready to transmit! Testrunning... Ok, Cam 1 for Bolt and 2 for Exo... Right. I see you, get ready, Exo, you start!"_ \- „Right. Begin with the countdown!" - „Wait! I don't know what to say!" - „And that makes it more authentic!" I guess he was right...

„ _Three..."_ My heart started going crazy. I was about to speak in front of the entire earth! _„Two..."_ This is too much for me, but I have to do it! _„One..."_ Here we go. _„You're live!"_

ExoSkull looked right in the camera. „Citizens of the earth! We are interrupting the running program for an important message, if your life has any importance to you!" Harsh but true.

„We are the Skulls and we came here a few decades ago after we had discovered your planet in a nearby sector! We made peace with you, and we are forced to help you. But I am not here to talk to you, for this, I have someone you should know: Bolt, from the TV series." My turn.

The light on my camera went red. „Uhm... hello humans! It's really me, Bolt! I am not that good in speaking to such a big audience, but this is something different! We are all in danger!" I saw ExoSkull nodding.

„Look, I can't believe it either, but apparently we have 'Slimes' on our planet! I don't even know what that means, but they can take any shape, and are very agressive! Please, there are ten giant spaceships nearing the earth! If you see them, get inside! They will take one billion people at a time to a vacation planet, and when everyone is off the earth, the Skulls will clean it from the Slimes!"

My light went off. „You heared him. The Omegas are coming. We are taking you to Terra 2905, and get rid of the danger. Trust us. You have to. If you don't come with us, our special forces will see you as Slimes and shoot ou down. You have no choice. See it as free holidays in another solar system."

I gave him a signal that I wanted to talk again and he pressed a button on his arm. My light went on. „Please, I am serious! If you want to live, you have to do it! That is all I know and all I can say." - „Thank you for your patience. This message will now repeat itself."

And with that all lights went off. _„Alright, that's it!"_ \- „Finally!" That was exactly what I thought. When we got outside, Mauser and the others were waiting. „You were great, Bolt!" - „Thanks... I was really nervous..."

The commander stormed to the Skullion. „Get inside! We are going to pick up Penny and her mother, and I want my PistoSkull back!"

-Meanwhile-

When the Omega one was put back together after the jump, everyone was excited. But in one of the lauch bays, a man knocked out a guardian, killing a second one with his submashinegun, before getting keys and starting up a little transporter which he flew out with, charging towards the house of a girl and her mother who were waiting for their pets to come home...

 **You know, instead of making the typical outro kind of thing, today I will tell you the real story that a friend of mine told me a few days ago: He already had a dog, and because of a kitten fight in a pet shop, his mother decided to adopt one of the cats. At first the dog was really afraid of the cat, but at the end of the very first day, when my friend walked in the room, the cat was sleeping ontop of the dog. When he told me that, I couldn't help but think about Bolt and Mittens. That's it from me, goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	15. A sharp turn

Mittens P.O.V.

The flight home was shorter than I thought, which was sad, because it meant that I couldn't lean myself on Bolt that long, but also good, because we finally got back home. I noticed how Mauser was staring at us a few times, but he just smiled and looked away again.

A few minutes of being in the air until we got down next to our house. Immidiately when the ship touched the ground we jumped outside. „We are home!" ExoSkull rang the doorbell and waited for someone to open up.

And thus we waited. For at least two minutes. But nobody came outside! Bolt made a worried face and said: „Penny should be home by now! And her mom is never gone for too long either!" He was right, it was already after school!

„Alright. Stand back." ExoSkull took a step back and lifted his leg up to kick in the door. It was instanly open. „Penny? Penny!?" I had a bad feeling about this, until I saw a note on the kitchen door.

„Hey! Look over there!" The commander walked over to it and picked it up. „Let's see... 'Hey mom, my friend Lisa came over and wanted to go to the park with me. Don't worry, I will be back by four p.m. - Penny'."

I was kinda relieved, but then I realized how ExoSkull looked. „We need to go. Get to the Skullion! Quick!" Bolt was worried even more now. „B- but why? Our job is done here!" - „This isn't about the job! It's about Penny!"

We all shrieked back and my heart started freaking out. „Why? What is wrong?", Rhino asked, to which ExoSkull replied with: „I would notice that handwriting out of a million. It's Morris handwriting."

„Jackie! You should take a look at this!" We ran over to Mauser, who was sitting in front of a pistol. „My god... PistoSkull!" He turned it in his hand a few times before pulling the magazine out, and said something that only made our situation worse: „A bullet is missing."

-One hour earlier-

When Morris got out of the transporter he landed a few kilometers away from the house, he reached for the Sniper rifle on his back. It was one of his only weapons, next to a butterfly knife and the SMG.

„Time for you to work, baby!" He shot a hook up to a roof and climbed it up to the top, where he pointed the rifle at Pennys home. „Where are you, girl?" Suddenly him mimic changed to an evil grin. „Now stay still and everything will be over soon..."

He pulled the trigger. The recoil made him lose visual contact of her for a moment, but when he got it again, he was angry. Very, very angry. „How could I miss that? She wasn't even moving!" A scream reached his ears as Penny ran inside, unintentionally dodging another bullet.

„You have got to be kidding me!" Morris jumped down from the roof and ran to the house, pulling out the SMG in the process.

Meanwhile, Penny headed to her bedroom where she opened a few drawers before finding what she was looking for: The pistol. With sweat and tears running down her cheeks she picked it up and held it in her hands. It was heavier than she remembered.

She hid behind her bedroom door and waited, secretly hoping that she had just daydreamed. But her wish was denied, as moments later a tall man stood in the doorframe. „Come out girl! I won't shoot you! I just want to talk!", he said with a weird accent.

She didn't believe a single word he spoke. Steps were coming closer and her blood was filled with adrenaline, until she could finally see his hand and the weapon he held. Penny waited for him to fully come inside, until she slammed the door and screamed: „Don't move a muscle! I will shoot you if you do!"

Morris shrieked toghether and lifted his hands over his shoulders, before turning around and revealing his face to Penny. It was an old, scarred face, yet you couldn't quite tell his age by looking at him.

„Then do it." That caught Penny off guard. „W- what?" Morris smiled. „Shoot me. If I can get outsmarted by a little girl like you, than I am just no longer what I used to be." His tone was calming suddenly, and she caught herself weakening her grip.

„So? Are you going to do it now?" - „Well, uhm..." She let the pistol sink. Her mistake. „DISTRACTED YOU!" Morris jolted up the SMG and, with unbelievable exact shots, hit the gun out of her hand.

„Now you are going to do what I say! And I say: Turn around and put your hands behind your back!" She made a step back before running. Her mistake. Morris shot the vases and picture frames on the wall down, forcing her to fall down in shock.

„I said: Put your hands behind your back!" She knew that she had nowhere to go. Penny crossed her arms and started crying. „Oh girl, don't act like a baby! I am just going to kidnap you! If you cooperate, I won't hurt you!"

With this he pulled out two rings from his belt and pressed a few buttons on one of them. Both started blinking and he wrapped them around one arm each, before pressing another button. A beam of green lightning strapped the two rings together.

„Don't even try pulling your arms away from each other. These are military grade handcuffs. If you do, they will give you electric shocks." Morris lifted her up and pressed her against a wall. He flinched his teeth together and pressed out: „And if you don't do what I say I will kill you, you understand me?"

All Penny could get out was: „Y- yes..." - „Fine!" He let go of her. „Now we need to make sure that your mother doesn't worry about you!" The tall guy pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started writing a letter.

„Let's see... 'Dear mom...' Nah, doesn't sound like a teenage girl. 'Hey mom...' uhm... 'my friend...' Hey! Who is your friend?" Penny didn't say anything. He walked over to her and pulled her up by the shirt. „I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!"

Penny started crying again. „M- mona..." Morris grinned. „I think you're lying! TELL ME A NAME OF ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS OR I'LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OUT!" She let out a sqirm and said: „LISA! Her name is Lisa!"

He let go of her again and chuckled. „See? That's all I wanted to hear! Ok... 'My friend Lisa came over...' Uhm... ' and wanted to go to the park with me... Don't worry, I'll be back by...'" He looked at his wrist before continuing: „'four p.m. Signed Penny!'"

„You will never get away with this! My mom will see through that and call the police!" - „Girl, where we are going, your earth police can't help you." Penny noticed the gun not lying far away from her. While Morris was writing, she made a few steps towards it and when he turned around to stick the note to the door, she picked it up and shot.

But she missed and instead hit the concrete wall next to him. „WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT COOPERATION?", he shouted and shot it out of her hand one final time, before grabbing her and dragging her outside to the small transporter.

-One hour later-

Bolts P.O.V.

I never ran this fast in my entire life. This crazy guy had my Penny! We hopped inside of the Skullion and flew off. While Mittens was next to me, hugging and trying to comfort me, Mauser and Rhino were discussing about how to stop Morris, and ExoSkull was talking stuff into his Comlink.

„Yeah, Omega one? This is commander ExoSkull speaking! Please go through all of your launch bays and tell me what ship is missing! … There is one missing for sure! … It's a fact, not a guess! … Ok, thanks. Please report anything to me right away!"

This couldn't be happening. I should have never left her alone. „This is commander ExoSkull speaking! Am I talking to Control Center 5F? … Ok, please initiate all sector radars, we are looking for an unknown spaceship coming from sector 5F29! … THIS IS AN ORDER!"

So this is my reward for saving the earth. Why did I agree to this? „Uhm, where are we going anyways?", Mittens asked. „To Terra 4. Morris' family moved there, and ever since he built his underground bunker near that place. We don't know if it's still standing, we did check a few times, but he secured it so good that no one can find it anymore!"

Just as we were about to hyperjump, we heared a message from the radio: _„Sir? There is a little transporter missing. Even worse: The guardians are shot inoperatable!"_ So this was our first real clue.

„Thank you. Please give that information over to CC5F!" - _„Roger that!"_ That was the last thing I heared, before the ring of light soaked us in.

When we got out of the jump, we immidiately saw a spacecraft. It was a bigger, bulkier one than the Skullion, but still pretty small. „We found them! Ok, now it's just going to be me retrieving her and everything will be fine!"

But our happiness didn't last long, as the engine of the ship suddenly fired blue orbs into space, directed at the a planet. „What is he doing?" - „YOU ARE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!" ExoSkull cranked up his engines too, and had to come to an aprupt stop, when the transporter in front of us was set to warp drive.

After that glorious manover, the only thing that we could do was to watch as Morris' ship turned into a fireball, crashing down onto the surface of the planet beneath us.

 **If you think that with the message being deliverd the story is over, you are very wrong. We have just started. Thanks to Advina, Basbon out, goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	16. A chase in space

ExoSkulls P.O.V.

We were all in shock. The transporter that had Penny and Morris inside just flew right into the surface of Terra 4! The first one to get a word out of his mouth was Bolt. And he shouted. He yelled his owners name into the unforgiving void that is space.

I put in gear and flew towards the crash site, where already a few people were standing. I opened up the visor and jumped out, followed by the four animals on the back seat. My first reaction when I saw the flaming wreckage on the ground was to get the fire extinguisher and start putting out the flames.

Moments later the fire department arrived and sprayed a mixture of powder and water from drones that flew over the ship. I didn't realize that Bolt tried saving what was left while I put out the flames, he just rushed under the burning melting metal and was suddenly gone.

When I saw it it was too late. He was already under there. „BOLT! COME BACK OUT!" But he didn't listen. All I could to was spray with my fire extinguisher in the hole that he got in.

Bolts P.O.V.

It was very hot. Extremely hot. My fur wasn't helping at all with getting rid of the warmth under the flaming metal sheets. I found myself a little way through, just to end up in a big open space. _This must be the cargo bay or something!_

From the outside I heared ExoSkull yelling at me to get back, but I was determined to find Penny and save her a second time from a fire. Not long after that I saw a hand. „PENNY!" The hand was on fire and without any motion, but I didn't care at all.

„Penny! I am coming for you!" I realized that my voice sounded different, and I pressed my paw against my ear. The voice decoder was still there! Penny could hear me! „Don't worry! I am just going to get the metal away from you!"

With my teeth I pulled one of the sheets from the others, a second one was stuck and it took me longer. But I didn't give up. After all, I had to save my person!

But when the last piece of metal was gone, I stood there in shock. The hand fell down. And there was no arm connected to it! „P- PENNY! NO!" And then it hit me: The hand wasn't a human one! It was a stuffed toy or something!

But that meant that either Penny was still in there, or she wasn't in this transporter at all. None of these options seemed to calm me down...

-Meanwhile-

Outside was a screaming mess. Everyone was shouting things through the crowd, and it didn't help that the white shepherd went straight into the flames to save someone who wasn't even there.

 _'In fact, the person he was looking for was already a few hundret thousand kilometers away from him, nearing Terra 422. Why that? Because Morris chose a random number and flew to the next best Terra.'_

„Really? Is this how you want to write it?"

Morris' P.O.V.

I sighed. „Ok, if you know a better way to write a story just tell me!" - „What is this 'Story' about anyways?" What are these questions?

„It's a part of my 'Between good and bad' novel!" - „What a name..." I kept it cool. „Well, it's a pretty accurate title for a book about being a mercinary!" - „And how does it start?" - „With my birth of course! You know, when I was a little boy and protected my parents from danger!"

I saw her struggling with the handcuffs. „Don't even try it. They are military grade, just as I told you. One more pull and you'll-" Well, what a fitting moment to say that sentence, because in this moment the cuffs gave a pretty decent electical shock that made the girl jump.

„Told you..." A siren got my attention. I knew what it was the second I heared it go off. ExoSkull sent out another call to search for me. „So he noticed."

„What did who notice?" - „Exo. I rigged the transporter to crash down on Terra 4 when he was right behind it so that I had a few more minutes extra time to flee."

„WHAT? But that means that Bolt will think I'm dead!" - „Propably." - „He went through it once and I won't allow a second time!" - „You're too late." - „Oh no! I am not doing what you tell me anymore!"

I'm sorry, but I just had to laugh at that. Who did she think she is? My boss? Someone to threaten me? „Look, if you don't do what I say, I will shoot you."

She was suddenly a lot calmer. „Oh really? Well then, do it!" - „And why that if I may ask?" - „Then you wouldn't have me as a pressure maker anymore!"

On one side she was right, on the other one... „Think about it. If I would shoot you, you would be dead. Dead girl leads to furious ExoSkull. Furious ExoSkull leads to him not making thought out choices. That means I can kill him easier."

Her face started sacking down. „Plus, dead girl means very, very sad dog!" Now I had her. „Ok fine! I guess I don't have a chance..." I smiled before turning to the alarm and said: „No you don't."

-Meanwhile-

-Current location: Sector 4R99 Sector Control Center

-Current time: 16:34 Earth clock

A man sprinted down the hallway with a tablet computer in his hand. His destination was a room that nobody but bots with intel class A could enter. No humans, no other lifeforms, just bots. While still on his way to this room, he almost crashed into a guy with an exosuit who was carrying spare parts to an airlock.

When the man was finally at the door, he knocked and held his ID card out. It didn't deny access and opened up immidiately.

Once inside, all the bots monitoring sector activity saluted him. The man was commander EchoSkull, son of the ExoSkull. A cyborg. Everyone in the Skull family is a cyborg. Everyone but HectoSkull, Exos grand grand son. He was the one who had to take the big rule after Exos death.

„Gentlemen!", Echo went, „I want answers! Where is Morris?" Nobody said a thing. „Ok, do you at least have one point of evidence where he could be?" Nothing. He sighed. „I thought so..."

Suddenly one of the bots in the middle raised his hand. _„Sir, you should take a look at this!"_ Echo walked over and focused his robotic eye on the screen. What was on that screen terrified him. Pictures of a totally wrecked transporter in flames.

„But Morris wasn't on this thing! I don't want to see the wreck, I want to see the ship that he escaped with!" The bot started tapping the screen unitl a few icons popped up. _„I think this is what you are looking for."_

„My god..." Echo stormed out the door that he came through and called his father.

Bolts P.O.V.

We were all inside of the Skullion again and raced with the hyper drive to another planet. „Are you sure that we are right?", Mauser asked. „Yep, absolutely! Echo just called me and said that one of the radars in sector 4R34 detected unidentified flight with two passengers and a non functional ILS!"

Mittens was laying in my arms. She didn't sleep, but she was calm. Maybe she still trusted the commander. At this point I had nothing to do. I was just being dragged around with the others. But I had to find Penny. I would not go without her!

„If this monster hurts my Penny only one single time I will show him what pain means!" - „He is not someone to mess with, Bolt." - „I don't care! As long as Penny is ok..."

ExoSkull pulled out of hyper drive and we were in an open area with nothing in it. You could only see a few stars and a planet in the distance. „This is where the sonars spotted him. I hope that we are on the right tracks..."

I couldn't take any more of this chase. All I wanted was to lay down and take a nap. I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down. Then I remembered what Five told me: 'It's obvious that you have feelings for her!'

Was it that obvious? Who knew about it? Did Mittens even know? So I had two problems: Admitting my feelings to Mittens and getting Penny back. It would be a long ride. A very long ride. And with this thought I slowly started sleeping.

 **I'm back! Yes, I took a break, and I will again, but I really don't want a writers block keeping me from writing ANYthing, so I just cut the writing over a few days. Thanks for either A) being so patient, or B) reading this for the first time and getting so far with the story! Goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	17. Getting a person back

Slowly but surely the three animals were getting used to hyperjumping, but the hyperdrive was a different story. Not even the artificial gravity generator could prevent everyone to be pressed into their seats.

Rhino was still excited about it, but over all the mood was kept very low. Everything they did ended in another chaos. They save the world and suddenly Penny is gone, they try to get to an outpost through a battlefield and almost get shot, and their flight with the cruiser... well, you know how that went.

Bolt wasn't sure what to think anymore. The only light that he had was Mittens next to him. His leg was completely fixed now, the earth was informed and they were catching onto Morris, but still, he wasn't happy at all!

Mittens was in the same situation. She didn't know if what Bolt and she had was love or deep friendship, but she knew that she never wanted to go away from him.

Rhino was also a lot more quiet than usual, but he was mostly thinking about what Five told Bolt on Maximus, about love and feelings. A part of him was happy about it, another part was worried that Bolt would miss his opportunity to tell Mittens, and a tiny part was scared of change.

The little hamster had no idea what that would mean to their friendship, if they would completely ignore him, or only hang out with each other but still sometimes talk to him.

Mauser wasn't that worried about Penny or Morris, in fact, he couldn't care less about that! His sorrows were on a different spaceship. After all, the thing that the commander dropped off at the Crypton was something so important, that he couldn't stop thinking about it!

ExoSkull however was fully concentrated on retrieving Penny and killing his arch nemesis and old long forgotten friend. He still felt guilty for not taking the chance to shoot him when he was standing not even three meters away from him.

Just when they all processed their thoughts, a small two seated minicruiser appeared in front of them. „This is our moment! Is everyone ready to get Penny back?", the commander asked. The answer was pretty clear.

He engaged the small ship and extended the gatling guns. „Let's see how well your homebrew hopper can defend against my warbeast!"

ExoSkull started shooting. Only warning shots, but Bolt started to freak out. „WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP SHOOTING AT PENNY!"

„Don't worry my furred friend! I won't damage them into exploding!" Morris flew faster. „Ok, this is the only way I can get him! I will be terribly sorry if something happens to your person!" Now he opened fire at the engine.

The white shepherd didn't like that at all and tried to jump onto ExoSkull in order to stop him. His attempt failed when Mauser pulled him back and held him down on the seat. „When the Exo says he has a plan then you have no right of stopping him!"

„But he is going to kill them both!" - „Look buddy, I can't let y-" - „I AM NOT YOUR BUDDY!" Mauser was surprised by the sudden assault. „Whatever you say Bolt, but I will not let you interfere with Exos plans!"

„Then I will have to get around you!" Mausers eyes tightened and he snapped his guns out of the multicoat. „Try it puppy."

Mittens and Rhino were watching the scene in horror, until the hamster had enough courage to go between the fighting dogs.

„HEY! Please! This whole situation is tearing us all down, and your argument isn't helping at all!" But that didn't stop Bolt from going crazy.

„Hey, can I get some help here please?", Mauser asked, trying to hold the other dog down. His question was obviously directed to the black cat.

She took her paw and layed it onto her friends chest and spoke, with a soft and calming voice: „You don't have to do this. Nobody will get hurt." And that managed to bring Bolt back to reality. „I... I'm sorry."

Before the boxer had time to accept the apology, ExoSkull shouted: „No need for fighting anways, I got exactly what I needed!" Everyone looked out of the window and saw a smoking, broken engine. The ship just floated around.

„I will slow it down and get a transporter to pick them up! For now though, you have to be very quiet, because if I miss this tractor beam, I might accidently set the generator on fire!"

But he didn't. And after a few minutes of waiting, a medium transporter showed up and loaded in the hopper. A few more minutes later, the Skullion and the cargo ship landed on Terra 422, surrounded by guardians.

„Alright guys, I hope that this will mark the end of our chase!" Everyone waited outside for the door to open, and when it did, a surprisingly calm man walked out with his hands in the air, followed by a young girl.

„PENNY!" - „BOLT!" The dog ran towards his person and jumped onto her. „I missed you so much..." - „Me too..." A heartbreaking scene, if it wasn't for Morris. Because he always had an escape plan. This time should be not different.

As Penny got her handcuffs removed, they used the very same on Morris. A critical mistake, as he used the kick in time of the beam to zap one of the guardians. The others saw that and started shooting, but he used the metal man as a shield.

„Oh no you won't!" ExoSkull pulled out his revolver and demolished the already wrecked bot, and left Morris with only the head in his hand. „This is it! This is the moment that you are going to die!"

But the rather old man just laughed and shouted: „Chatch me if you can, old friend!" He used the remote control for the cuffs to release him and took out his teleball. He ran away and basicly called in his hoverbike.

„Not again!" Mauser and ExoSkull took one of the vehicles standing nearby and drove after him, and that is the last time that Bolt ever saw them.

„So, how are we getting home now?", Rhino asked. A young man stepped out of the cargo ship. „I think I could give you a ride to your planet!"

They all looked at each other and nodded. „That would be very nice of you!" - „I'm just doing my job..."

The usual happend again. Liftoff, save distance, jump, land. Bolt was laying in Pennys arms, and Mittens was in Bolts. Rhino had a talk with the pilot and was even allowed to initiate the hyperjump!

After the flight back to earth, they came down on the lawn. The pilot of the transporter waved them, and went on to pick up humans to get them to the various collection points.

Pennys mom was already packing clothes. When they all got in, they were greeted by hugs and petting. „So, how was the day with Lisa at the park?" They were all confused, until Penny looked at the clock. It was 17:32.

„You took longer than you wrote me!" - „Things... didn't exactly go as planned.", Bolt replied. His persons mother shrieked back. „Y- you can talk?" Oh right! He still had the voice decoder! And so they went on to telling their story of what happened. It would be a long talk.

 **So, you might think that that's the end, but it isn't! We are nearing the end, but I still have at least one more chapter planned, if not two. So I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for reading this story! I have just checked, and with 50 pages in my odt document, this is the largest thing I ever wrote! So also special thanks to Advina for always reviewing my stuff, you are a great help for me! So, that's it from me, goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	18. Old friends and misunderstandings

„I am so glad you made it out alive! I had no idea what cruel aliens could be out there!", Pennys mother said with a worried tone in her words after Bolt finished the summary of the last days. „I still can't believe you understand us!"

„Well, it's not always easy for us, but we manage to pick up the needed lines. But that's not the point here, we need to get out of here as quickly as possible! We even have a special place in the Omega one!"

So they went on packing their stuff. Rhino however was bored, and since he couldn't really help getting things together, he turned on the TV. As soon as he hit the remote, his magic box started displaying Bolt's face as he said: „ -f you see them, get inside! They will take one billion at a time to -"

Oh yeah. The message that was now on every screen in the world. A part of him was sad that he couldn't watch his shows, the other one was happy that everyone knew about the danger now.

After another intense half hour of getting the luggage ready, the family went out just in the right moment to see the underside of a gigantic metallic spaceship flying over their heads.

„Oh my goodness..." They all just stared at it. The three animals were also amazed by this things size, even though they saw it not long ago from the side!

„I- I guess that's our ride...", Rhino said, to which the Bolt responed with: „As long as this really is the Omega one." Penny made a confused face. „What? What 'as long as'?" - „Oh sure, you can't understand him, Rhino said that this is the ship we are going to be in."

„Maybe we should ask for two more voice decoders once we're up there..." Just when she spoke her sentence, an in comparison way smaller object flew out of the giant one. Followed by many, many more dots, all spreading around the place.

„ _Citizens of the earth, this is the Omega four speaking! We are sending down transporters to pick you up! If you don't trust us, switch on any electronic media device you have! We are the Skulls, we are helpers, we are your only chance!"_

The voice came from the big craft in the sky. „Oh no... this is not our spaceship..." - „What are we going to do now?", Mittens asked. „I think we should wait for these transporters to come down!"

The message now repeated itself. Completely distracted from the metallic words they didn't notice one of the cargo ships landing on their yard behind them.

The worker inside jumped out, and tapped Pennys mother on the shoulder. She let out a surprised sqeal and turned around. _„Sorry if I scared you, Ma'am, but this is your personal ride to the Omega one. Please follow me!"_

A small crowd of people started filling up next to the transporter. _„Please step aside, this is a private ship, please wait for a public one to land in your area!"_

Surprisingly, the humans didn't argue with the robot, they just left and looked for another way of getting to safety. But something was weird about this bot! It was without a doubt a halfbot, but Bolt knew this voice... But from where?

They got inside and the door closed. Pennys mom started getting a little light headed, so she had to lay down and was overwatched by a medic. _„You really did it Bolt, you really did it!"_

He knew his name... _„I honestly didn't think that minimalistic plan would work, but it seems that you have gotten every human on your planet to trust us!"_ He knew the plan...

„Who are you?", Mittens finally asked. The halfbot let out a chuckle and gripped his helmet. Then he turned it to the right with a neck breaking motion leading to the sound of air being exchanged. He pulled it off his head and...

„FIVE!", the three yelled at the same time. „My god, Five! You're alright!" The halfbot laughed and replied: „Yep, I made it! A few minutes after my life support went on I got picked up by a medic and was treated instanly!"

They couldn't believe it. The guy who helped them out on Maximus was alive and completely ok! „I just wanted to thank you for getting us over safely, without you we couldn't have made it!"

„Aaaah, I was just doing my job!" - „Strange, the pilot said the exact same thing when he flew us home from this other Terra!" - „What? Just doing my job?" - „Yeah! Is this like a Skull phrase?"

Five laughed again. „Yeah, kinda! You know, we all live after one principle: In the end it won't matter anyways."

Now they were confused. „What do you mean by that?" - „It's something ExoSkull always tells everyone! In the end none of what we do will matter, because it will always end in death!" - „That... is very dark."

„Well, yes, but see, what one as a single person does doesn't affect the whole universe, but what we do as a team does! So if we want to change the universe, we have to work together! That's what we are always getting told by the generals!"

Bolt had to admit, the truth in these words was unavoidable. But he was just happy that his savior made it through alive.

„I was lucky that I had been placed on this transporter, deticated to pick you guys up and get you over to the Omega one! Oh, by the way, Bolt, watch your back!"

The white shepherd had no time to react, as Mauser jumped on him and threw him over ending up laughin ontop of him. „I'm sorry man, that was just a perfect situation!"

He got off of him and stepped aside, before breaking down in laughter again. „You should see- you should see your face right now!" - „Yeah yeah, very funny."

Bolt noticed Mittens grinning in the background. Immidiately he felt jealous again. This boxer was about to take the cat away from him!

„Hey, Mauser, could I talk to you for a second?" - „Sure! Ok guys, we are just quickly going over to the pilot room! Five, I think I can trust you to look after them." - „Yes sir!" And so the two dogs went outside of the storage area.

„Ok Bolt, what's up? Is there something on your mind?" - „Yes, ideed. Look, I know what you are up to. Just stop it!" The boxers face went dark. „You know?" - „I know. And I want you to stop!"

„How do you know about it?" - „Oh come on Mauser! It's so obvious! But I can't let you do that!" They started walking in a circle. „How would you be affected by that at all?" - „I think you know how!"

„There is no point in your logic! What we have is something that is not of your interest at all!" Now Bolt was getting angry. „Oh it is!" - „How's that?" - „Because I love her more than you!" Now Mauser stopped.

„Wait. What?" - „You heared me, big guy! I love Mittens more than you could ever do!" - „I'm sorry, but WHAT?" Now Bolt stopped too. „What exactly are you talking about?"

„I was talking about Mittens, and how you want to be with her and stand between us!" The boxer sat down. And started laughing. What's it with him always being so happy in these moments? Was he enjoying it?

After he could talk properly again he said with a still broken voice: „I- I am so sorry that you are thinking that! But I could never love a cat!" The white shepherd was equally confused as relieved. „But... what were you talking about?"

„About Zeta! Morris' dog!" Ok, that was too much for Bolt. „W- I- I- I just don't understand! Explain! Please!"

„Ok, look Bolt. When Morris and Jack became friends, he already had Zeta, a golden retriever, and to that time someone I was afraid of! He was just so strong and I was weak! But then he gained my trust, and we became friends."

Bolts mind was stumbling over itself. „We had a pretty great friendship, nothing like Exo and me, but pretty decent. But then Morris got the order from Exos grandson to kill Ellie, Exos wife, to make him do things that he didn't want to, in an effort of weakening the Skulls."

„And it worked." - „Yes it did! But that's another story. Anyway, even after that, Zeta and I stayed friends, we still see each other sometimes, but we can't tell our persons where the other ones person is, that's just a pact of us!"

„But Mittens..." - „Mittens never interested me. Actually, I have already layed my eyes on someone, but you don't know her, and I don't intend on getting you two to meet up."

„So that's what you meant with 'How would you be affected by it'!" - „Yep. Ok, look. I feel like there have been a lot of misconceptions between us. Let's start again. And because you felt like I was a threat to you, I will help you to get Mittens!"

Bolt was overwhelmed. „But... how are you going to do that?" The boxer suddenly had an evil grin on his face. „Oh, I have my connections..."

 **It's still going Ladies and Gentlemen, I am still rolling it. Actually, I have nothing to say today, so I am going to end this story right here for this chapter. Goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	19. Half a day on the Omega One

When they slid onto the tracks of the docking bay, the transporter shook heavily. Five already had his helmet back on, and they could see the masses of people getting inside through the check in.

„ _Ok guys, I have the priviledge to guide you to your room, so please follow me. But first we need to go through theses scanners."_ \- „What do these things do?" - _„_ _They just scan if you are a slime, we carry this test out on your planet aswell, but this is just to make sure we aren't in danger up here!"_

The seven got in line and waited. One after another was getting through the metallic bow that looked like an airport metaldetector. The first one was Mauser. No result at all. After that it was Fives turn. Nothing. Bolt, Mittens, Rhino, Penny and at last, Pennys mom.

But suddenly the bots guarding the entrance behaved weird. They looked at each other and pressed buttons on a pad. „Something is wrong...", Mauser said, when out of nowhere three other robots stepped in.

They looked very frightening, had what appeared to be gas maskes on their faces, even though it was clear that the anatomy they had wasn't human. Their weapon they held looked like a vacuum cleaner, but with the actual motor attached to their backs, and a shower head on the front.

These things were built big, heavily armored and with spikes on their shoulder blades. The eyes of the mask were shining red and they had a blue light slightly right over the right eye.

They made a few very deep beeping sounds and pointed their guns at Pennys mom. The poor woman had no idea what was going on and could only watch in horror as her child and pets were pulled to the side by the halfbot and boxer.

„Wh- what is going on here? Help! I am not one of these slime things! I am a human!" - **_„Do not move intruder! You are being surrounded!"_** They had an extremely deep metallic voice, something you would hear in movies from big talking computers that turned evil.

„MOM!" Even though Five had a servomotoric support in his arms, he still had a hard time holding the girl back. _„_ _Calm down Penny! I'm sure we can settle this problem without violence!"_

So these were the special forces that everyone had been talking about! They came closer to the still terrified woman. Parts of the guns were now moving, spinning up, and now the little holes in the front head were being made visible by a green sparking glow behind them.

Normal guards were now also there, helping out keeping the passing by humans away from the danger. _**„Raise your arms!"**_ She couldn't think normal anymore and just did what she was told to do.

In this moment something on her arm started moving. It was her watch! In realization she screamed and threw it off. Her watch now turned into a green blob of goo, then started hissing at the robots. Before she could think, Pennys mom was pulled away from the uninvited guest and was given into her daughters arms.

Instanly the three special force bots opened fire at the thing on the floor. It was a green fluid that became steam as soon as it touched anything, with bolts of lightning shooting out of it. The blob had barely any time to get away and metled on the spot.

They held at it for at least another ten seconds making sure that it was really dead, and when their eyes switched to a yellow color all that was left on the ground was a little hole.

Everyone needed a minute to get their brains together. Still in shock, a few tests were being held on Pennys mother, until they were free to go in. You could tell from her eyes that she didn't like the Skulls and Slimes at all.

„ _Ok, here is your room! I am going to the transporter again, there is still work to do, but you are now free to leave and do whatever you want!"_ The other six said goodbye to the pets former lifesaver and went on doing their stuff.

The rest of the day went by without any further interruptions, and night began to fall. Well, in space nighttime is pretty much always, or at least not in the earth cycle, but since everyone gets tired due to their biorythm anyways, they could switch on 'Night mode' in the appartment.

So, at around 2:30 a.m. earth time, a certain light brown boxer snug into their bedroom. Mittens and Bolt were sleeping on two seperate beds, and Mauser didn't like that at all. First, he turned down the termostat to a fresh 10°C, and watched as they started digging deeper into the blankets.

The next step would require a really careful pull on Mittens blanket, and a good hiding spot. He grabbed the piece of cloth with his snout and pulled it away slightly, then removed it completely and hid it on a top shelf.

Instanly the black cat rolled together, and started to shake. But she didn't get up... Suddenly Mauser had another idea! Every appartment had an inbuilt weather simulator, and so he set it to 'Thunderstorm class 2'.

Enough to make a cat be scared, but not enough to make it seem suspicious or even wake up the other ones.

And his plan worked! As soon as the first simulated lightning bolt striked, followed by a deep growl far away, Mittens eyes were opening up. The boxer jumped in cover behind the doorway and smiled as he heared his plan succeed.

Mittens stood up and struggled with herself. Not only was a storm outside, but she was also very cold and without any form of security. The only thing she could think of was to get over to Bolt. The white shepherd wasn't afraid of thunder at all, and even found it amusing to listen to it, also he was soft, warm and she felt... well... cozy around him.

Finally she made the move and walked over to him. A last glance back at her own bed and she poked him on his back. He just nozled his snout and slept on. A second poke, this time a bit harder and he woke up.

„M- Mittens?" She felt her blood shooting in her head. „Uhm... hey..." - „What's the matter?" - „It's cold... you know... thunderstorm outside... I apparently have no blanket..." Slowly Bolts tired brain started realizing what she was hinting at.

„Well, I still have enough space in here, so if you want..." - „Yup. Please. I- I mean, thank you for your suggestion..." They both blushed. Which was ok, since it was too dark for the other to see it. So she layed down next to him and snuggled into his fur.

Mauser waited a few minutes until he took a peek around the doorway and looked at the two. He felt like his heart was melting in cuteness. Even after all those years of war, fighting and unbelievably thick friendship with ExoSkull he still had a very smooth heart and light soul.

The two were laying in each others arms and sleeping with a smile on their face. What a sight. But he still had some work to do, setting up things, getting in contact with someone, meeting up with Zeta...

Meanwhile at the slime scanners, there have been some minor occurances, but overall they got everything down to a minimum of deaths. Surprisingly, everyone was getting along with each other, there were no fights between anyone yet, not even an argument!

Except for one at the entrance of course, but this little fight was put down by the guardians immidiately, no one likes being able to look into a loaded scout rifle, so this was selttled with pretty harmless methods.

If you thought that harmless was talking and discussing things, then you are wrong with the Skulls. The only harmless they know is not shooting someone on sight when they make trouble. As the laws of Skull say: Rule 9; Be forgiving, friendly and selfless to other Skulls, but unforgiving, hard and merciless to everything that isn't a Skull.

Of course, that had to be changed when the UDGDU was founded, being short for the german meaning ' **U** nion **d** er **G** roßmächte **d** es **U** niversums', or as it's translated: 'Union of the Universes great forces, but since UDGDU sounds better than UOTUGF, all the five forces (Lead by the Skulls) decided to pick the german name.

To this day, all 4 nations wonder why the Skulls decided that way, and it will forever be a mystery to them. A secret that only ExoSkull knows the reason for.

After UDGDU was founded, the nineth rule was rewritten to say: Rule 9; Be forgiving, friendly and selfless to other Skulls or UDGDU members, but unforgiving, hard and merciless to everything that isn't a Skull or UDGDU member.

It took a few years to get it into every copy of the rules, yet everything they had to do was to update the book. There is only one solid, paper, copy of it: In the headquarters deep down, locked in a barricated safe. This thing. This thing is resistent against fire, physical impact, laser (due to its Raygonium seal that absorbs any form of laser and can shoot it out on demand again), and explosion to a nuclear level.

And to this day, legends say that if you manage to locate, dig out and open up the safe, there is a treasure inside that will make you the richest living being in the Skull universe. If you manage to get past the guardians and actually find a way to get inside, the reward is unbelievable. That is if you make it out alive.

But maybe HypoSkull just made that up to get a lot of people to storm the headquarters. Which is illigal by the way, if you get found in it and you are unauthorised, you will be shot. No warning, no second chance. And that's why not shooting someone on sight that makes trouble is considered harmless among the Skulls.

 **Seriously. Try saying UDGDU three times fast in a row. You will most likely break your mouth before doing it. Let's just see if Mausers plan to get Mittens and Bolt together will succeed...**


	20. The problem with humans

„Are you sure this is the right way Six?", a metallic voice asked in the darkness of the night. „Yes, we are definately getting closer to the source." - „You have to worry less about things like that Three! Remember, we have a map and GPS!"

„Sure. Sure sure. This is just... you know... my first real mission and I'm kinda nervous over what could go wrong..." - „Gah, nothing will go wrong! You'll see, in just a few minutes we will get these people informed and the source destroyed with no problems!"

„I wish you were right Two, but actually there are some problems that could occur..." - „Thanks for ruining my motivational speech One! I'm sure that will help him!" - „Guys! Stop fighting! This is not the right moment for it!"

„Sorry Five." Out of the dark came six figures with rifles in their hands. They were halfbots and on a mission to get people to the collection points and try to locate a source of Tempamaturum on planet 5F29, otherwise known as 'Earth'.

Despite his name, Five has been given the order over the team. Some people don't understand that principle when they hear it, they just ask „Shouln't 'One' have command over the troup?", and they're right!

Actually, that was the case for a long time, but then it was changed due to... incompetent people with the number one.

The six all had their helmet lights off and were prepared for shooting. Suddenly they heared a loud sound behind them, followed by a bunch of simmilar, more silent ones. The team spun around and almost shot. Three, the new guy, let out a quick sqeal, to which six could only laugh.

„I'll go check.", Five suggested and moved in its direction. But when he turned on his spotlight and looked at the thing he held he just shook his head. He was holding a tin can in his hand. But then he noticed that it was too heavy for an empty tin can.

He held his ear against it and heared some silent clicks inside. Slowly and with extreme caution he removed the lid and now stared at a display with red numbers counting down from 0:27.

Immidiately this little aluminum container had his full attention. He had no idea how to safely disarm it and no idea what to do other than to throw it away.

In his panic he took a leap back and launched the can into the sky where it landed in the ally where they came from.

„Guys! Get away! Run!", Five grabbed the younger halfbot and threw him into cover while holding his ears and awaiting the explosion.

And thus he waited. And waited. And they all waited. In his head he started a countdown, but either he miscalculated something, couldn't count right or it should have exploded ten seconds ago.

He got up after a minute and told the other guys: „Let's just get going again, I think it was just a blind bomb.

A few minutes of walking down the ally and they came to the residential buildings. „Ok guys, here we split up. One, Two, Four, you are going to take Three with you and search for the source. When you need help, you know my comlink number. I will warn this household over here and you Six are going to warn the household over there!"

They all agreed and went on with their own duty.

Fives P.O.V.

I hoped so bad that nobody was living in this house. It already looked pretty old, so I didn't really think something bad could happen.

I knocked the door and waited. Nothing happened, so I decided to kick the door in. You know, usual scout manner. I switched my helmet light on and had a look around.

I was standing inside an old, rusty building with carpets on the windows. I'm not even kidding, these things were carpets.

„Hello? Is anyone home?" I didn't think I would get any response, but I still felt like exploring. Not long after my armor was fully inside the room, the lights went on and the door fell closed with a lound bang.

I spun around and saw a pretty old woman with white hair and a stick in her hand which she held the door closed with.

„Who are you?", she asked. He voice was broken and rough, but she made a stable and solid impression to me. „Good evening Ma'am, I'm sorry that I have to interrupt your routine. My name is Five B, fitht scout of the B barrack, generation 1357. I am here to get you to safety."

„What are you doing in my house?", now she sounded angry. „I am from the Skulls. You should have heared about us by now. I am here to get you to a collection point, three kilometers away from here."

„You want to kidnap me?" - „No Ma'am, I want to get you to safety. This is why I visited this house!"

„Oh! So you came to visit me!" - „Sort of, yes." Now her mimic brightened up. „How nice of you! I never get visited, you know?"

„I am terribly sorry for that. If you have anything personal that you want to take with you, please pack it now." - „Do you want to leave so soon?"

I was puzzled. „Well, uhm, yes. We should get going as fast as possible!" - „Oh... Do you want some cookies and tea?"

That was the final drop. How in all honesty did she imagine my job? Maybe her head isn't working the way it's supposed to anymore. „Thank you, but no thank you. We should leave."

„But you just got here!" - „I'm sorry, but" - „You know what? I'm going to get you some tea and cookies!"

No... please... „Ma'am, this would take too long!" - „Oh, you young people are always in such a hurry! Look, I already have a cup and the tea bags here and cookies are on the table. See, all that preparation payed off!"

„Ma'am by all respect and in all honesty, why are you prepared for visitors at two o'clock in the morning?" - „I'm always prepared! Now sit down and wait for the tea, it's ready in ten minutes."

„We really don't have ten minutes! We need to meet up with the other halfbots as soon as possible!" - „Well, you can tell your friends that they have to wait for you!" - „Ok, if I eat cookies with you, are you going to come with me when we're done?"

„Yes, if that's what you want!" What did I get myself into? I should have chosen the other house...

Six' P.O.V.

When I kicked the door in, Five did the same thing on his house. Let's get this going. I walked into the building with my light off, but switched it on the second I closed the door. I heared a few faint sounds.

The whole lower level was clear, no sign of life there, but when I went upstairs I heared noise from one of the rooms. It even had lights on! Just as I was about to go in and check, the door opened up. I lifted up my gun and was ready to shoot, but I couldn't see anyone.

„Are you Mr. Mecha?" It was a little kids voice. I looked down and saw a sleepy boy in a blue pyjama and a stuffed elephant in his hand. „Wha... no, no I'm not Mr. Mecha. Are your parents at home?"

The boy looked at me and said nothing. „Are your parents at home?" I lowered my gun and kneeled down to get to his eye level.

„Mommy said I'm not allowed to talk to strangers." My head rattered and I knew what to do. „You know what? She's right. You shouldn't be talking to me. It's the best way to keep you safe. So, could you show me where your mommy is so that I can talk with her instead?"

Now I had the boy. Reversed and twisted phsycology. Good thing I took that class for a week in the academy before I dropped out.

He led me to another door and opened it up. Inside were two sleeping humans. The boy went up to them and shook them. „Daddy? Mr. Mecha want's to talk to you!"

The man in the bed lifted his head up and yawned. „Austin it's two o'clock in the morning. You shouldn't be awake right now." - „But daddy, Mr. Mecha want's to talk!" - „Austin. Buddy. Can't he do that in a few hours too?"

That was the point where I thought I should get involved. „No Sir, I can't. It's very important." The boys dad jumped and woke his wife up. „Who are you? What are you doing in my house?"

Oh well, time for the standard stuff again. „Sorry to have interrupted your routine, Sir. My name is Six W, sixth scout of the W barrack, generation 1357. I am here to get you to safety."

„I will call the police if you don't get out of here in the next three seconds! One! Two!" It had no sence. „Three! That's it, I am calling the police now!"

He ran past me, but I pulled him by his sleave and went to the nearest room with him. „DON'T TOUCH ME! I AM GOING TO SHOOT YOU!", the guy shouted. No sence talking to him in the formal way.

„Ok, you listen up right now, right here! I have better things to do than to argue with you over your own personal safety! I am here to get you to the nearest collection point, otherwise you will get mauled and melted to death by anti-slime-serum!"

Now he was confused. „I am sure you never had the amusement of a drop of that stuff on your skin, have you?" - „No. I don't even know what that is!" - „You don't want to! It burns. It burns down your flesh and everything on its way."

„But..." - „No, I am talking right now. It's a slow and painful death, and if you don't want it to happen to you, then you should come with me!"

Why are these humans always so hard to talk to? I knew it was going to be a long, long talk with this guy and just hoped that the other six scouts were doing their part aswell...

 **Six is right with one thing: You just can't talk to someone in a normal way. We always want to be right about everything. Anyways, I hope you still like this story after its... wait. WAIT! This is chapter 20 already? But I thought I only wanted to go a few more chapters after the last... Oh well, see, this is what I mean by 'not having a red line'. It might turn out to get longer than I expect myself. Also, don't worry! Bolt, Mittens, Rhino and Mauser will get their part of the story in propably the 22** **th** **chapter continued! For now, I just thought it would be interesting to see Five and crew dealing with Skull stuff. After all, if the Skulls were a real thing and not just something I made up a few years ago and went crazy in pasts, information and deepness of the characters, I would have marked this story as a crossover. Also, I am writing too much in my outro! So thanks Advina for always reviewing, and Projectslang1 for reviewing on a previous chapter, your support means a lot to me! Goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	21. New projects

Fours P.O.V.

Not a good time to be in this place. There is no good time to be in this place. Since we entered this old, rotten building, Three already had around ten heart attacks, and our communication systems failed us the second we took a step inside.

„ _Guys, are you sure that we should go in there?"_ , Three asked as we were about to break into another room. _„Look. We know what we are doing! Two over here is from generation 1352! If anyone here has any kind of expierence, then him! And we are a team, right?"_

A deep growl made us flinch. It didn't sound human. It didn't sound like an animal. It sounded like a spawn of hell. We all switched our lights off. _„Come out, come out, wherever you are..."_

And it did. It came out from wherever it was. And it was terrifying. It looked like something right out of a horror movie. We all knew it was a slime, but this thing's appearence was changed to a muscular, fleshy golem.

„ _FIRE!"_ It was all we could think of in that moment. I bet Three had another heart attack at that point. We let rains of bullets hammer down on this monstrocitys chest, but our ammo just bounced off.

Suddenly, Two shouted from behind me: _„WATCH OUT! ASG!"_ And with ASG, he meant anit-slime-granade. I jumped out of the field as fast as I could and avoided the liquid by only a few centimeters.

The slime however had no luck with this one. It screamed in terror and pain as it melted into a single blob of goo on the ground. _„We have to be careful with these..."_ , One reminded us. _„You're right. We only have three more. Let's get moving!"_

The scanners already showed a high concentration of tempamaturum, but we wanted to make sure that we got as close to the source as possible. Suddenly I heared a faint scream. We all turned around to look for what it was, but we all were there!

One, Four, me, Two and... Three? Where was Three? _„Three? Where are you?"_ \- _„Lights on guys, we won't leave him back!"_ But out of nowhere he stood there with us!

„ _Oh, there you are! We thought you might have gotten lost here..."_ But he didn't reply anything. Strange, but maybe he was just shocked. We didn't think anything bad could have happened, why would we? We were just, you know, inside of a shape shifting slime infected house with the strongest source of tempamaturum in the area, what bad things could happen?

The signal got stronger and stronger as we moved on, and with every room we were in we had to fight more against slimes. At this point in time we were running on only one ASG. But finally we came to the strongest point of the signal: A hallway in the third floor underground. _„This is it guys. Let's blow this place up and get away from here!"_

A wise desition. With all we had we put together our contraption for a chain reaction that would atomize everything in a hundret meter radius. As our ammo slowly got less and less, we had to switch up paste a bit.

At first we thought it was a good idea to go melee at them, but we almost got eaten alive twice. But soon we realized that dodging attacks and THEN going melee at them was a better plan.

With our last ASG we escaped the building, and met up with Five and Six.

Fives P.O.V.

After drinking some coffee with the old lady I went outside with her, carrying her bags. We were immidiately greeted by a little boy who came running up to us and hugged the woman. A man and his wife showed up from behind Six, shaking the ladies hand and asking if she would go to safety too now.

I used that time to talk to Six. _„So, I see you got everyone out."_ - _„Believe me, talking to this man was not pleasent at all. But eh, what are we gonna do about it?"_ \- _„How's the report from One? Did he at least call you?"_

„ _Sorry man. Nothing from them since they went inside."_ I knew they were dead. But this tiny bit of hope wouldn't die. _„We should go now."_ Just as I lowered my head, I heared the voice of Four from behind me.

„ _Hey Five! Did ya miss me?"_ I can't express how relieved I was, aspecially when One pulled out the remote and pressed it's button. An electric sound came from the direction of the house as it collapsed in itself.

After a brief moment of celebration, we headed up to the collection point. Three wasn't talking at all, but maybe he was just in shock. I was just about to explain to the kid that none of us were 'Mr. Mecha', as another explosion, this time in front of us, made us jump.

The can went off. Not even fifty meters away from us. The boy started crying and I looked around myself to make sure nobody was hit by anything, when I realized: The timer on the can wasn't broken. It counted minutes, not seconds!

If we would have finished our mission just a few seconds earlier, we would have been dead meat. One part of the job here is to always expect the unexpected. And you have no idea how often that statement is true. The best example for that has to be when we entered the transporter to the Omega eight, and the slime detector started ringing.

 **(Part of what I think is the most fun about the Skulls is that I always find a way to leave something up for the readers, or myself, to figure out on their own. Have fun figuring.)**

It was early morning on earth, which meant that it was time to get up on the Omega one private suit! The family would stay on the giant ship, because no home on terra 2905 was nearly as good as this appartment.

Bolt woke up from a very nice dream, and in his paws he held a black furball. He slowly opened up his eyes as usual, and pulled Mittens towards him. Still being pretty tired he didn't quite understand what was going on.

The cat was already awake, but didn't move. She didn't want to wake Bolt up more than he already was, because once he noticed, he would instandly let go of her. But the minute came that the white shepherd gained full conciousness.

As she expected, he let go of her and, under many blushing apologies, pushed himself to the other side of the bed. Mittens faked a yawn to make it seem like she had just woken up too and said: „Good morning Bolt, how was your night?"

„I didn't sleep well during the first bit, but when you came over I had no trouble sleeping at all! How about you?" - „I think so too! Thanks for letting me sleep over here, I have no idea where... my... blanket?"

She stopped in the middle of her sentence and looked over to her bed in confusion, because she clearly had a blanket on her mattress.

„Uh... that wasn't there yesterday! Where did THAT come from all over sudden?" Just now she noticed how that might look to Bolt. But no time to think, because guess who opened the door at that moment: It was Mauser. With a few surprises up his sleave just for that day!

„Hey there! How have you slept on your first day up heeeeeee..." He tried making a surprised face before continuing: „Uhm... I see you don't require a second bed! Well, that's fantastic, we just had a shortage of these things in the main storage bay!"

That was a lie. First, the Skulls didn't use beds to keep the passengers comfortable, they used electromagnetic fields to slow down time in the bays, therefore making it seem faster for their guests.

Second, these beds can't be placed anywhere else, just folded down into the floor to get more room. „I am just quickly taking care of that!", Mauser annouced cheerfully, as he walked around the corner to the control panel.

He made the bed fold in and had a very, VERY hard time keeping his laughter in. His plan was working just fine, now he just had to get the second part down perfectly too.j

 **Hey guys, sorry for the delay, I was busy, ya know, programming, taking care of a few things... But now I'm back! And I have to say sorry in advance, I might not post anything next week either. The reason for that is simple, but nothing to shout out in public, let's just say: We are having a guest for quite some time. Anyways, I hope you're doing well, thanks to Advina for staying all 21 chapters with this story, goodbye und schönen Abend noch!**


	22. The second part of the plan

Bolts P.O.V.

„So, what do you think of the Omega one?", Mauser asked, trying to spark a conversation while we were walking down a hallway. „It's fairly... big..." I was baffled by the size of the corridor we were walking through.

„Meh, nothing against the Crypton! And this is exactly where I will send you now!" Oh no... „Why? Is there something important we need to know?" Mittens was next to me and obviously not that fond of this idea.

„Oh you will find out! But for now, I am using every right I have to keep silent!" A door opened at the end of the hallway and we were now standing on a bridge with only a small steel fence on its side.

Worst of all: The void under the bridge was going down seemingly endless. Mittens immidiately paniced and held onto my fur. „H- how high up are we?", she asked while pressing her eyelids together.

„Not that high... Let's say 300 meters?" I felt the cats grip tightning. Suddenly the boxers ears twiched and he raised his head. He started smiling. I turned my own head to Mittens and whispered: „I... don't have a good feeling about what's about to come next...".

I might have made it worse for her. „Guys, I found ourselfes a ride!" Now I was terrified too. I stepped closer to the fence and saw, to my horror, that there were, between pipes and smaller metal beams, rails.

Traintracks. I was instandly set back to the day we jumped off a bridge to land on a train. I remember that day, when I was overconfident in my abilities. Now I was the one scared to jump. To be fair, the tracks weren't THAT far down, but could still get us a reasonable fall down the...

Exactly in this moment the train shot by. I took everything back that I thought about the drop, this thing was almost as tall as the platform we were standing on. The noise it made was deafening and it brought a storm with it, that's how fast it went.

„LET'S GO!" Out of Mausers 'Multicoat' came arms and picked me up on his back. It was too late to refuse, and most of all, to question how he keeps all of those tools in this small backpack.

As we fell, Mittens was still holding onto me and shouted her soul out, meanwhile I tried to bounce the fall a bit. I've had a broken leg already this week and I didn't want to have another one.

But to my surprise the landing wasn't even that rough! We were standing perfectly on the top of a moving train withouth even being pushed back! When I looked down I noticed why: Mauser had a grappling hook attached to the wagon!

He slowly walked backwards until we fell in a gap between two wagons and let me down for a minute of catching my breath.

When Mittens found her voice again she was angry. I was very happy that I wasn't Mauser at that point. „COULD YOU AT LEAST WARN US ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THAT?" - „Sorry, spontanious idea. Anyways, we are going to-" - „WE COULD HAVE DIED!"

„But you didn't!" By now I had kinda developed a fear of what this dog could do, so I tried calming the cat down. „Mitts, I don't think this is the right time for arguments... You are way too beau-" AAAAAAND I cut myself off right there.

I originally wanted to tell her that she was too good for arguing with him, but somehow my brain decided to use a different word. Everything slowed down and I could feel the blood rushing through my head already. Before I could say anything else I took a short breath and continued with Plan B:

„-ood for fighting him!" I didn't leave too much of a gap between these two snippets of words, but it was enough for everyone to notice the short thinking time.

Mittens stopped the second these words left my snout and even Mauser went silent. But the difference was in their reactions.

While Mauser started smiling again, Mittens slowly turned around and stared at me. „B... beauood?" My chance.

„Good! I said good! What did you expect?" Oh god... now it sounded like I didn't think that... „I- I mean, not that it couldn't have been something else... I mean, what else would there be to say, right?"

Her eyes just kept staring. With every second I felt myself calmer and calmer and right about the thing I said. I caught myself almost telling her 'I said beautiful', but I noticed it right away and kept silent as the time slowed down again.

Mausers P.O.V.

That was not the second part I had in mind, but I guess some things just need a tiny push in the right direction to work. I could only watch as the two were losing themselfes in each others gazes. Didn't we have the same situation on terra one when I repaired Bolts leg?

I was about to get between them, but then I noticed: I don't even have to do anything anymore! This was all playing out by itself! Sure, I could let them build up more need than they actually need, but that could also break things!

The train slowly came to a stop and we jumped out. I thought that was the time that they would stop looking at each other, but I was wrong! In fact, they got out just to have a moment of silence for themselfes! And of course I respected that. I waited behind a corner and listened to what they started telling each other...

Bolts P.O.V.

A good while had passed until I broke the ice. „Look, Mittens, this might sound dumb now, but there is something that I need to tell you..."

Her eyes widened and started filling a bit with water. „When we were on Maximus and Rhino accidently fired the rifle, Five put you on my chest. I immidiately felt better about my leg!

And then he told me somthing that completely changed the way I thought about everything..." My heart was beating through my neck. Nobody cared about anything except for the other at that point.

„He told me that it was obvious how I..." Too early. I need to do something different. „I always hated cats, for no reason other than they were always little jerks to me, but I never hated you! I mean, of course at the beginning, but then I slowly realized that the complete opposite was true!"

Mittens was just stading there, I noticed how she was inching her way towards me. „When my leg was broken and itchy, having you in my arms let me completely forget about the pain! The only hope I had when we were chasing after Penny was that you were by my side and didn't let go of me the entire time!"

I couldn't hold it in much longer. It was happening. It was truly happening... I took a deep breath. „Five told me that it was obvious that I have feelings for you. I didn't know what that meant, and when he explained it to me, I realized... I love you..."

Her eyes were dripping as she stepped closer. She couldn't get anything over her tounge, even if she wanted to. „It felt wrong at first, you know... a dog and a cat... but now it's the rightest thing I ever felt!"

I think I broke her. Mittens came storming towards me and threw me over. In a crying last attempt of saying anything she just gave up and kissed me. This was the weirdest, but best moment I had in my life. And after only two seconds, it wasn't even weird anymore.

When she was done she dug her head into my neck and sobbed: „I love... I love you too... Please never go away..." - „I won't. I would never want to leave you. Do you want to be my-" - „Yes! Yes I want to be your mate! How could I ever say no to you?"

Mauser didn't interrupt anything. He waited behind the corner and listened to the fruits of his plan. He finally succeeded. He couldn't be happier. While the two freshly... married?... mates were telling each other of all the times that they felt in love with the other, he was getting doing his calls that 'part 2' was no longer needed.

He remained silent after all of this and even told Bolt that he hadn't done anything yet. They eventually went up to their room and, from this day, never slept in seperate beds ever again.

 **Epilogue**

After the planet was wiped clean by the Skulls, they began transporting the humans and animals back. A total of 500 special force bots were rendered useless during that time. Many people found their houses surprisingly empty, not because the Skulls robbed them, but because they had a lot of Slime in their rooms.

Even in Pennys house there were a bunch of things missing. But scans showed that no sings of tempamaturum remained. Bolt got to keep the speech converter, not because it was a gift, but because ExoSkull had so many of them he forgot to take it back after they recorded the message.

When the forces arrived, there were still a bunch of people on the planet, 90% of which were slimes, the other 10% were people who didn't believe the Skulls.

To Bolt and Mittens, they will always remember this time. Not only because they rescued the earth, but also because they became mates in the same term. What they had was a bond that nobody could break. Even the hardest times from then on were only half as hard.

Rhino recieved a secret, and very special present from Mauser: His own comlink. They sometimes still watch movies together.

 **The very end.**

 **Yes, this is the end, I think I streched the story long enough... It was a very cool time with you, thanks to all the great people who commented, here is your personal shoutout:**

 **Advina: How could I forget you, you were with me this entire story, just like pretty much every other one I did so far.**

 **Projectslang1: Joined in too, your words were very motivation!**

 **Wooling Mations: Sorry to disappoint you that this is indeed the last chapter, hope you enjoyed it anyways!**

 **Thanks for keeping me motivated, I hope you liked what I created, go on living in your world now, 5F29 is a place full of great stories! It's highly unlikely that I will write another story, so consider this the very last chapter from me ever. (Oh and by the way, everyone from the Skulls, even characters like Ronny [aka. Four] have a backstory. I created one for every single character you have read about. The Skulls are much more than only this Story)**


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